My A.T. Still University Experience : family

The Claw Decides!

SteveFoerster — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:45:00 GMT

“Law school taught me one thing: how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different.” — Hart Pomerantz

So we heard back from The Claw and the verdict is that my wife was accepted to Nottingham Trent University's distance law degree program! I had told her not to worry, that she had a strong application. It was probably a good thing that she ended up speaking with the ultimate decision maker, though. Evidently there was some question whether she'd be evaluated as a university age student or as a mature student. The latter had a flexibility she needed when it came to things like A-levels, so it was in her favor that she got to explain the situation carefully. In the end she was evaluated as a mature student, and that made all the difference.

So now we have other things to worry about, such as buying the absurdly expensive law books she needs and, of course, paying tuition. As a U.S. permanent resident she's eligible for federal financial aid, which would be helpful were she actually going there to attend school (even though it's foreign), but is not because she's staying here and attending by distance. Now, I'm not sure what the rationale is for the difference, I mean, by staying here she's contributing more to the U.S. economy than the British one, so one would think that would be an American policy maker's preference, but alas this is not the case.

Anyway, by next month she needs to have sent in a deposit, after which she'll receive her books list for the first term. The way her program works, she'll study one subject intensively at a time, three subjects per year, for four years. She's glad for this sort of format, as it allows her to be single minded about each thing during its time.

Now that the stress of getting the application in and the response back is over, it's also finally sunk in that she's really just signed up for four years of something pretty intense. She's confident about her ability to succeed, but fortunately she's not overconfident. She's asking me whether I really think she can do it. Yes, I do — in fact I think I'd be more worried if she were saying things like, "Yah man, no problem, this will be easy."

Next up, multimedia and the future of education.

Add to:

My Wife the Law School Student... We Hope!

SteveFoerster — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:59:00 GMT

“The Claw chooses who will go and who will stay.” — Alien #2, Toy Story

For many years my wife Adella has talked about how she wants to go to law school. This is an interesting situation, because we're in the U.S. for now but ultimately we plan to return permanently to Dominica, in the Caribbean. That means she needs to do a law program that would allow her to practice law there, but it also has to allow her to practice law here at least for a while.

The problem is that because of our family schedule, distance learning is one of her requirements, and if you want to practice law in the U.S., your distance learning options are very limited. The American Bar Association has a death grip on accreditation of law schools, and squeezes tightly to ensure that distance learning options aren't available. And it's understandable that they do — they last thing need is for it to be convenient for people to go to law school, why, then there would be more lawyers out there, and that would mean more competition to drive down legal fees!

As with any sufficiently complex system, though, there are loopholes. The biggest is California, which is unique among U.S. states in that it has an alternate system where programs approved by the state bar association allow one to take the bar exam in that state. Since some of those programs are available by distance, it's possible to do a JD degree online from one of them if one is okay with only being able to practice in California, at least initially.

Unfortunately, we don't live in California so that doesn't work for her. And then there's another wrinkle in that she doesn't have a Bachelor's degree. In most English-speaking countries, law school is a first degree, called a Bachelor of Laws or LLB. In the U.S., it's a similar program, but it requires a Bachelor's to apply, and the degree is a Juris Doctor, or JD.

So what about foreign schools with distance learning programs? This is especially useful for my wife in that those programs are mostly at British schools, and since Dominica inherited its legal system from the British, it's possible to practice there with a British law degree, and many attorneys there do exactly that.

The question, then, is how much use a British law degree is in the U.S. It turns out that the answer depends on in which state you want to practice. We live in Virginia, and it seems that a British law degree doesn't get you very far in this state, but that if one has a British LLB one can practice in either D.C. or Maryland by going on for an extra year to get an American LLM, or Master of Laws degree. We're just fifteen minutes from either of those jurisdictions, so that might be the best option.

So, with it reasonably settled that an LLB from a British school with a distance learning program would meet all her criteria, she then had to find one that would be a good fit. The best known and most prestigious is the University of London External Programme, but it's a notoriously difficult program, and she's concerned it wouldn't be easy to balance with family and work responsbilities. There's the Open University, which is well regarded, but unfortunately they don't admit students who live outside the EU. There's Northumbria University, which requires more visits to campus (i.e., trips to England) than would be convenient for us. But finally there's Nottingham Trent University, where annual visits would do, and where the overall cost of the program is about eighteen thousand dollars.

Then she spoke with a friend who's an attorney in Ireland and now New York who has an LLB from Nottingham Trent and recommends them highly. So she applied to Nottingham Trent a while ago as a first choice. After a while she called them to see whether they'd received all the materials she sent, and ended up speaking with a very nice lady who it turns out is the decision maker on her application. Even though she was so pleasant, Adella couldn't help but later admit to me that she thought of her as The Claw since she's the one who chooses who will go to Nottingham Trent and who will stay out.

Anyway, she's supposed to hear from The Claw next week. Here's hoping that she's selected!

Next up, The Claw decides!

Add to:

Night at the Smithsonian

SteveFoerster — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:03:00 GMT

“Crimey, we've been jimmy-jacked!” — Amelia Earhart, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

So I mentioned that these three weeks between terms would be the time to restore some semblance of balance with work and my family. That's one of the toughest things about being a student as a working adult, that many times in the last half a year my kids have had to wait as I finish an assignment or read some article before I can give them the attention that they deserve. I've spoken with them, and they tell me they understand why things are the way they are, and I try to remember that by taking school seriously I'm setting an example for them, but it's still tough sometimes.

But as I mentioned, right now I'm between terms. That means it's time to come up with fun things to do, and this past weekend I took them all to see the new Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian movie actually at the Smithsonian itself!

How did we do that? Well, many people in the Washington, D.C. area know that the Smithsonian has a set of gigantic IMAX movie theaters. One is in the National Museum of Natural History, one is in the National Air and Space Museum, and the newest one is about twenty miles out of town in the Air and Space facility out next to Dulles airport. During the day those theaters play special movies that are custom filmed for the museums, like about dinosaurs and tectonic plates and things like that. But what most people don't know is that in the evenings those theaters show first-run movies. And since their theaters have truly enormous screens and cliff-like stadium seating, they're the best places in the area to see a movie.

So when I heard that the sequel would be set at the Smithsonian, I knew that going there to see it would be a great family activity. I was right — everyone from my four year old son to my seventy-four year old Mom loved it. And it was really cool that we were in the very building where much of the movie was set.

And I'm glad they had so much fun, because in a few weeks classes will start again and once again my family life will get jimmy-jacked!

Next up, I look into the history of A.T. Still University and its founder.

Add to:

My Academic History: Bachelor of Science

SteveFoerster — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:46:00 GMT

Bless me Father, for I have sinned....

Hmm? Oh, sorry about that – it's tough to talk about my history as an undergraduate student without it feeling like some sort of confession.

In other words, I have to admit that I’ve actually had a pretty checkered history as a student. I was a terrible student in high school, barely graduating at all thanks to skipping so many classes and generally not taking anything seriously. I did go on to college, but in that first year I was more interested in chasing girls than chasing A’s, and after only passing about half of my courses I didn’t return the following fall.

It wasn’t until I was about twenty-two and had worked a number of dead end jobs that I realized that education was something I’d have been wise to have taken a lot more seriously. I went back to school at night, taking a course or two at a time at whatever university happened to be nearby. This went on for the next seven years, accumulating credit in dribs and drabs from different schools as I moved from city to city. Since this was the roaring 1990’s, the dot-com boom when IT jobs were easily had solely through technical competence, I was doing reasonably well in my career even though I was still without any sort of degree.

Then, at the end of 2000, I took a consulting job offshore, on the beautiful Caribbean island of Dominica. (I’m referring to the small English-speaking island, not the larger Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic with which it is unrelated yet often confused.) While this was an exciting career opportunity, there wasn’t anywhere local where it was practical for me to continue taking courses, and since I didn’t know anything about distance learning at that time, my progress stopped.

Fast forward five years. I was back in the U.S., and having thought back on how much I’d enjoyed the various different schools I’d attended I had become interested in higher education as a place to have a career. But I knew to be taken seriously in that arena it was time finally to buckle down and not only finish a Bachelor’s degree, but also go on at least for a Master’s as well.

But where should I go? I had about 70 semester-hours of credit from all my previous experiences, but it was scattered among transcripts from six different schools. I’d also picked up an IT certification that I thought might be worth some transfer credit. One day I was searching for options, and I ran across a mention of Charter Oak State College in Connecticut. This school was different, in that it allowed up to 100% of the credit applied to a degree to be transfer credit, offered transfer credit for IT certifications, and was open to an unlimited amount of transfer credit by examinations like CLEP.

I may not have been good at attendance when I was in high school, but I was always good with those standardized tests, so I had a feeling that CLEP would be ideal for me. I was right – while completing my degree I took only four courses, doing the rest, nearly a year’s worth of credit, by taking seven CLEP tests. In just over a year, I had a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and was ready for more.

As a final note: credit where it’s due. It’s very difficult to do this sort of thing without a support system, and I’m no exception. Without my family’s help, especially encouragement from my Mom, I don’t think I would have been able to finish, and if I had it certainly would have taken a lot longer. (Hi Mom!)

Next up, my Master’s degree program, warts and all.

Add to: