Score 1 for the University

Equal to my calling to point boldly to areas of lacking in my scholastic experience is the imperative to tip my hat when actual learning is taking place.  Such is my experience so far in Advocacy in Communications Class this semester.  Real reading, real research assignments, real interactive discussions.  Although my return to academia is still new, I cannot help but wonder at the reasons for the difference.  Could it be that this class being advanced for graduate students in pursuit of a Masters is the difference?  It is a 500-level course.  But if this is the actual learning and intelligence level that I hoped for—and I am still and undergrad—is there an unspoken comment in there reflective of the quality of undergraduate education?  Have we seen standards slip so that we are churning out “basic” college graduates as if they are High School diplomas and therefore the “Masters” is the “New Bachelors,” and perhaps the High School is the new Middle School?

I will let that question stand unanswered for now as I enjoy my semester in the trenches.  I do not want to sound egotistical, but how refreshing that someone else besides me quoted Aristotle in class!

I do need to gripe a bit about tuition escalation.  I took one 3-unit course last semester at a cost of about $770.  This semester, my one, 3-unit course is going to cost over $1250—a 65% increase in three months time.  This raises the estimated cost of completing this degree from about $22k to $38k, +/-.  When Shakespeare said to, “Empty your purse into your head and no one can steal it from you.” I do not think that he meant the “purse-emptying” quite so literally.

Be well.

Score 1 for the University

Equal to my calling to point boldly to areas of lacking in my scholastic experience is the imperative to tip my hat when actual learning is taking place. Such is my experience so far in Advocacy in Communications Class this semester. Real reading, real research assignments, real interactive discussions. Although my return to academia is still new, I cannot help but wonder at the reasons for the difference. Could it be that this class being advanced for graduate students in pursuit of a Masters is the difference? It is a 500-level course. But if this is the actual learning and intelligence level that I hoped for—and I am still and undergrad—is there an unspoken comment in there reflective of the quality of undergraduate education? Have we seen standards slip so that we are churning out “basic” college graduates as if they are High School diplomas and therefore the “Masters” is the “New Bachelors,” and perhaps the High School is the new Middle School?

I will let that question stand unanswered for now as I enjoy my semester in the trenches. I do not want to sound egotistical, but how refreshing that someone else besides me quoted Aristotle in class!

I do need to gripe a bit about tuition escalation. I took one 3-unit course last semester at a cost of about $770. This semester, my one, 3-unit course is going to cost over $1250—a 65% increase in three months time. This raises the estimated cost of completing this degree from about $22k to $38k, +/-. When Shakespeare said to, “Empty your purse into your head and no one can steal it from you.” I do not think that he meant the “purse-emptying” quite so literally.

Be well.

Score 1 for the University

Equal to my calling to point boldly to areas of lacking in my scholastic experience is the imperative to tip my hat when actual learning is taking place. Such is my experience so far in Advocacy in Communications Class this semester. Real reading, real research assignments, real interactive discussions. Although my return to academia is still new, I cannot help but wonder at the reasons for the difference. Could it be that this class being advanced for graduate students in pursuit of a Masters is the difference? It is a 500-level course. But if this is the actual learning and intelligence level that I hoped for—and I am still and undergrad—is there an unspoken comment in there reflective of the quality of undergraduate education? Have we seen standards slip so that we are churning out “basic” college graduates as if they are High School diplomas and therefore the “Masters” is the “New Bachelors,” and perhaps the High School is the new Middle School?

I will let that question stand unanswered for now as I enjoy my semester in the trenches. I do not want to sound egotistical, but how refreshing that someone else besides me quoted Aristotle in class!

I do need to gripe a bit about tuition escalation. I took one 3-unit course last semester at a cost of about $770. This semester, my one, 3-unit course is going to cost over $1250—a 65% increase in three months time. This raises the estimated cost of completing this degree from about $22k to $38k, +/-. When Shakespeare said to, “Empty your purse into your head and no one can steal it from you.” I do not think that he meant the “purse-emptying” quite so literally.

Be well.

Score 1 for the University

Equal to my calling to point boldly to areas of lacking in my scholastic experience is the imperative to tip my hat when actual learning is taking place. Such is my experience so far in Advocacy in Communications Class this semester. Real reading, real research assignments, real interactive discussions. Although my return to academia is still new, I cannot help but wonder at the reasons for the difference. Could it be that this class being advanced for graduate students in pursuit of a Masters is the difference? It is a 500-level course. But if this is the actual learning and intelligence level that I hoped for—and I am still and undergrad—is there an unspoken comment in there reflective of the quality of undergraduate education? Have we seen standards slip so that we are churning out “basic” college graduates as if they are High School diplomas and therefore the “Masters” is the “New Bachelors,” and perhaps the High School is the new Middle School?

I will let that question stand unanswered for now as I enjoy my semester in the trenches.

I do need to gripe a bit about tuition escalation. I took one 3-unit course last semester at a cost of about $770. This semester, my one, 3-unit course is going to cost over $1250—a 65% increase in three months time. This raises the estimated cost of completing this degree from about $22k to $38k, +/-. When Shakespeare said to, “Empty your purse into your head and no one can steal it from you.” I do not think that he meant the “purse-emptying” quite so literally.

Be well.

Back in Black (or Back at the Blackboard)

Well after a Summer hiatus where I worked at my job--and worked, and worked, and worked--I am back in acedemia. I am taking a graduate level course as an undergrad. It was available, within my major, and the university computer system mistakenly let me register. I do not know whether to be greatful or otherwise.

I have reviewed the syllabus--it is challenging from both a volume and an intellectually demanding perspective. I hope that I have not bitten off more that a wayaward returning scholar can chew. Weeks one and two have been allabout introductions to the coursework and the expectations laid upon us, so there is precious little to report. We dig in this week and so I expect much ado starting soon.

Be well and I will write again soon.

It's a Wrap! Pass the Pizza Mr. Mao....

Day 13
Well, we turned in our Final Exams at the beginning of class today. If you will allow me one gentle conceit, I come to class with 74 out of a possible 75 points tucked into my pocket, so a “C-level” grade on the Final should still get me an “A” for the class. But I am confident that all will be well.

The lecture was mercifully short, and the professor brought pizza for the class. I always knew he was a likable sort—and this proves it. So, in addition to being utopian-control freaks that lean precipitously away from freedom, toward tyranny, and in denial of theism and human nature whose ideas—if fully implemented—would pose an existential threat to our way of life and a degradation of civilization itself, they can also be relatively intelligent folks who bring free pizza to class. Who’d have thought?

I will be registering for my next wave of classes soon and will write in an update at that time.

Be well,

Academic Apartheid

Day 12
We spent the first half of class today watching the first part of a television documentary on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (RCC) in post-Apartheid South Africa. Remarkable how Bishop Desmond Tutu officiated that noble public discussion and testimony—helping guide that country away from devolution into anarchy and additional bloodshed and into a more-free, equal, and open society. Thus, Apartheid rests upon the ash-heap of history with sister evils: Communism, Fascism, and slavery, among others (though pockets of Communistic thought and slavery exist to this day).

I take nothing away from the historic nature of those events or the tragic impact upon the individual lives and collective soul of South Africa when I ask, “Why are we watching this video here and now, in this class?”

If this topic is to be the framework for our study of Advanced Argumentation, why are we not exploring the nature and quality of the arguments that facilitated the philosophical surrender of the South African regime? Why do we not hear Desmond Tutu’s speeches that were of such quality as to prevent revenge-seeking and retaliation by the repressed and disaffected black population? Why do we not hear the arguments made before the United Nations that caused the governments of the world to lean the weight of economic sanctions against the few, struggling, and increasingly isolated supremacists leading the South African Nationalist Party?

Instead, we only see the suffering and hear the stories of the oppressed in emotional appeal. These are worthy stories, indeed. They are worth telling together with the tales of the Holocaust, Gulag survivors, and other heroes and martyrs for humanity. But this class is to teach us the intellectual weapons wielded in such struggles and the student might be better served with less history lesson and reflected guilt—and a bit more effective argument and persuasion technique. This is an opportunity lost to learning the lesson at hand. Progress toward the focused education course implied by my degree track sits in the back of the bus behind dogma and indoctrination.

Be well,