I'm done with my Education Specialist degree. Yup. Finished. My field study is approved, good to go, yadda, yadda, yadda. The very last step is this: Print off the thing and get 4 copies made onto 25% bond paper (or higher) and then bring it to the library at MSUM to be sent away to be bound. Oh yeah, I forgot, and pay big money for all of this too. $100 for binding and who knows how much for copies. I've got about 90 pages to copy four times onto "special" paper. Yuck.
At any rate, I'm finished. It's a very weird feeling and I don't know now what to do with myself. I can throw a LOT of stuff away...I can put most of my books back on my shelf. I can quit carrying around my jump drive. I can quit bookmarking RtI sites "just in case". Wow. How am I going to live now, after this????
Huh. I dunno. I suppose clarity will come later. Hard to believe I'm here. GLAD I'm here, don't get me wrong...but this grad school thing has been pretty much a part of my life for so long. I was text-convo-ing (that's what I call having a conversation with someone via text messaging) yesterday about it. I started my masters program in 01. Well, actually, spring 02. That took me until December 04. Then I took a little time off and restarted in spring 07, pursuing the education specialist degree. I completed requirements for Director of Special Education license and K-12 Principal license summer of 08 and then did my field study all of 08/09. I defended the fieldstudy summer of 09 and after dinking around with revisions and some miscommunications with my advisor, I'm able to graduate now, December 09. For all intents and purposes, I've been done with the "meat" of the study since May 09. I've only had to do simple, micky-mouse revisions since then and I'm VERY, extremely irritated about the whole ordeal. BUT, whatever. It doesn't matter in life whether I graduated summer of 09 with this degree or now. It only matters that it is done. But I went off topic.
So yeah, I was text-convo-ing about the fact that pretty much since January 2002 I've been going to graduate school. There were 2 years in the middle of that where I wasn't, but those two years were full of working at the ASEC developing programming and being involved in whatever administration would let me -plus being depressed and putting off the inevitable which was the specialist degree. About five years of graduate school, seven years of in that "mode".
Let me tell you a secret. I was scared out of my ever living mind to start my masters program. I literally had to force myself to go to class during that entire two and a half years. It got much better as my program had gone on, but it was not easy for me. The cerebral stuff and the work for the most part, that was easy. But the going, the participating, the socializing, the involving...that was hard. Through my masters program I built confidence. I found myself and who I was. I was able to tap into my potential. It was difficult for me to be done with that program...but I wasn't yet ready to move on to the specialist degree and subsequent licensure. I still needed to develop more. So I did.
Then, the specialist degree was easier. Nothing was very difficult. Well, content wise, it wasn't really -work wise, it was a heavy load. Very busy, very heavy on the writing, reading, and research. VERY extremely time consuming. I grew. I found one of my favorite quotes which I have in my signature line in my personal email: "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." That's by Eleanor Roosevelt. That quote spoke to me like crazy because I know it's true, I saw it happen in my own life. You cannot grow, you cannot gain a thing unless you are willing to do what is hard, what you think you can't possibly do. I've done that. I've come from that place. I know.
This year, I feel somewhat in that place at times. There are times I am so lost in this job that I wonder what the heck I was ever thinking. Then there are moments where I have such clarity it's like I'm in a different dimension and the world looks different and stuff just comes spewing out of my brain. I've been having moments of clarity like that lately. I've been trying hard to recognize when my gut feelings are telling me things -when to listen closely to the voice in my head/heart that is telling me the "right" answer. -because I really think I have that in me. Call it whatever you want, I will not define it nor label it but to say that I've been listening lately. And it's working. I'm thinking that if I can continue to stop and look fear in the face, I can continue to gain clarity and continue to do what my fear says I can't do. I overcame that demon by December 2004. I've strengthened my response since then.
I'm glad to be finished with the specialist degree. I'm very proud of the fact that I have an educational specialist degree. There are many people who have 38 or more graduate credits over a masters or who just went long enough to get their licenses in administration, but I buttoned them up in a degree. I finished it, I followed through and took the hard road and did my field study -as uncomfortable as that process was at times, I did it. So I'm proud of that.
I'm also in a state of mourning. I'm sort of grieving right now. A part of me feels like I've lost some kind of security. It was comforting knowing I had that program to work on. Now what will I do? What is my purpose now? Work? Yuck. I want more than that out of life. I surely do NOT want to pursue a doctorate or another degree for some time yet. I do very much need a break from academia. So...I'll be searching for something new to occupy my time.
But in the meantime, I'll know that I've accomplished this. I did it on my own. Though I had the support of friends and sometimes family, I did it on my own. Paid for everything on my own, managed everything on my own....every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears have been on my own. I recognize it as valuable and a worthwhile venture in my life, even if others don't. That's all that matters.
So...on to the next adventure...whatever that might be!
No comments:
Post a Comment