Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Backstory, Part 3

As I mentioned in the end of the last post, I went back to my original choice of psychology for a career path. I've ditched my dreams of being Clarice Starling however. These days, I want to be - a lumberjack! a therapist. I have heard many rumblings from some *cough cough my mother* that I am not cut out for this. I do have a certain propensity to say such things as "You're STILL whining about this?" "uh huh...uh huh..yeah....wait, what?" and "God, you're such a fucking dumbass." I save that last one for my husband and brother mostly. I think I can supress my jackassery, and if not, Dr Phil makes a good living calling people asshats.

Seriously, I want to work with women who have had traumatic birth experiences and loss. I can't imagine telling anyone to suck it up in such a situation. We're looking at that PhD again though, and I don't know if that's in my cards. I'm taking this one degree at a time here. At this rate, I won't get a PhD until I'm approximately 104, and I was sort of hoping to have retired by then.

Years ago, someone had mentioned a Canadian online university to me. I figured this was the answer to my prayers. I can't possibly get out of the house, and everything is sent here. I also had high hopes of finishing my classes in less time, but that was quickly dashed. I found it really difficult at times just to keep up. The U is fully accredited, but I did wonder about the real world reputation of a place that'll take anyone with a GED and $80. I took two courses there, an English that was mandatory for all and Statistics. That's when I started thinking about Optometry (it was the crack I was smoking at the time), and that maybe I should try for a BSc instead of a BA. Online U didn't have a BSc in Psychology. But, one of my local U's did. They also have quite a variety of online courses, but not full degrees. I sent some emails, annoyed a lot of people, and applied.

Forever later, I got a teensy letter in the mail from them. I remember from my old days of University application, teensy letter means fuck you, you're too stupid to come here. Wah. I opened it anyways, hoping it would say I just needed to take Chemistry or something. Surprise, we'll offer you a program you didn't apply to. Just to screw with you some. So, no BSc, but I could take my BA there. They'd already done the transfer credits, 6 out of a total of 20. That was pretty surprising, I didn't think my old classes would count for much by now. I can't remember anything of them. Except, this one time in Psych 101 the TA took his sweater off and his tshirt came with it and....oh, sorry.

That sums up how I ended up at local U, mucking about.

3 comments:

  1. Hey, Ottawa's Melissa.

    Did you know that many, many counselors are social workers with Master's degrees? (MSW).
    This includes the birth trauma counselors in Ottawa. An MSW is either a 4-year BSW plus 1-year MSW, or 4-year anything else plus a 2-year MSW. As a potential alternative to a PhD if you want counseling without the PhD...
    also, can't speak for your local school, but I know here that it is much easier to transfer into your degree program of choice from within the university than to get in from the outside. If they offered you BA, you could enrol, take courses that will be useful to the degree program that you plan to enter, or even make up any deficiencies that you think might have led to your rejection (i.e. redo a prereq or something), then apply next year internally for the degree program you really wanted.

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  2. MSW is something I had looked at.

    I don't need the BSc, it was just a wingnut idea. Who knows where I'll end up. I'm still kinda hoping to win the lottery and not have to deal with it. ;)

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  3. Even a BSW or other program. I took two years of courses and applications before I was admitted to BSW, but when I was admitted I had third year status because I'd taken the courses I was allowed to take (and some I wasn't but I'd gotten special permission to take from the instructors).

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