Graduate School

[TxZen]

I know I am VERY blessed to be going to Graduate school BUT I find it extremely boring. I understand they have to teach the nuts and bolts and then when I am at work, I get the tools to operate those nuts and bolts but boy, I am having a hard time concentrating!!! I already work in my field and I find what they are teaching is not really anything to do with real life. I get that but I thought I would see more substance at the Graduate level. Just my quirky way of thinking. I see it was a means to an end for step 1 to the changes I need to make in my life. Thoughts?

[Zoe Girl]

what is your work/graduate program? it may be they are teaching mostly people who are not already working in the field. i found in my on-line graduate program i wanted a lot more discussion and interaction on a deeper level (but the online format was really the only one i could manage at the time). i had some things that were hard, a lot of time spent on how to arrange desks in a classroom for effective teaching, argh.

i think i would focus both on where you are going and why this is useful, but i also went deeper on some topics personally. when something really got my attention i would take a little time to read an article extra and then my brain might re-engage

[TxZen]

Masters in Education- grades 4-8 with certification. There are some great conversations but I find myself 2 hours into a 3 hour class and I am like "Ok got it." I do extra reading and try to bring that to the table each week- a website, a book, an article, etc. Maybe I should pick your mind Zoe? :)

[Zoe Girl]

sure thing! i love deep conversations and since i work in OST programming instead of school day i don't get many deep educational conversations. the people that they are choosing to do our trainings are not highly educated in education, like that makes sense, My current big interest is mindfulness in education based on my background in meditation,

[Tammy]

I found my MBA classes to be just like college except all in one area of study. Every class forced me to prove that I could write. 16 classes that made me prove I could write. And the case studies -- they had no solutions that worked in the real world and some instructors were as bad as managers at shutting down any honest feedback about what life is really like on the front lines of the work environment.

Honestly it felt like they purpose of the program was to turn us all into the ineffective managers that we didn't want to be, rather than brainstorming for real solutions.

I can't believe I finished the program. I don't like to quit.

[Tammy]

So here's why I stayed in grad school:

Work was paying for most of it.
It got me a better job as I hoped it would.

Isn't that crazy? It worked. I doubled my income. It looks good on my resume. And it didn't add much to my actual way of managing my career and interacting with my chain of command both above and below me. It's fluff that paid off. Exactly what I don't believe in! Ha ha ha

[TxZen]

I found my MBA classes to be just like college except all in one area of study. Every class forced me to prove that I could write. 16 classes that made me prove I could write. And the case studies -- they had no solutions that worked in the real world and some instructors were as bad as managers at shutting down any honest feedback about what life is really like on the front lines of the work environment.

Honestly it felt like they purpose of the program was to turn us all into the ineffective managers that we didn't want to be, rather than brainstorming for real solutions.

I can't believe I finished the program. I don't like to quit.


THIS!!!!!!!! One of my professors is the VP of curriculum for a district. She is CLUELESS when it comes to how teachers are really having to deal with all these new requirements and how SHE thinks it should be done. When you give a well thought out and common sense solution, she just "UMMMMMS" at you.

Means to an end for me at this point. :)

[Cypress]

I am back in school myself and taking an online course as the potential for a Certificate in Journalism. The instructor has posted an article from a blog asking us our opinion on reporting bad news. In other words, going to the home of the family of murder victims, or tragedy of some kind and getting the story. We are being asked to comment on this article written by a journalist recalling the early beats in his career. The problem is, the article has explicit vulgarities in it. Not mild at all but the f, s, and ah word I cannot even type.

We are required to us AP style book for our articles and it clearly states we are to avoid using vulgarities always. If a vulagrity is part of a quote, it needs to be flagged so the editor decides whether or not to publish it as is. This is a blog but still. I am studying and using the guidelines for good journalism. The instructor is asking what I think. Is she testing me? Or is she ? I don't know what? I have no idea how to even comment on the article as it seems out of the norm. What is wrong with this picture?

[kib]

Cypress, I think I'd comment with more or less what you posted here, and then continue with a critique as if it wasn't a test. E.g., "the use of vulgarity is not in keeping with professional journalism. That said, blah blah and blah."

[Mary B.]

I know I am VERY blessed to be going to Graduate school BUT I find it extremely boring. I understand they have to teach the nuts and bolts and then when I am at work, I get the tools to operate those nuts and bolts but boy, I am having a hard time concentrating!!! I already work in my field and I find what they are teaching is not really anything to do with real life. I get that but I thought I would see more substance at the Graduate level. Just my quirky way of thinking. I see it was a means to an end for step 1 to the changes I need to make in my life. Thoughts?

Personally I found the classes to be a bit of a necessary evil. That said, I enjoyed some of the discussions and found them valuable if only to see all the different ways people can interpret something someone else has written. I also got some absolutely wonderful book and article recommendations from other people in the classes -- things i likely wouldn't have blundered into on my own. I liked the "what if" nature of some of the best discussions -- i wasn't really looking to them for practical, applied solutions to problems, more as a place to push the edges of theory and how it applies in practice.

I think I was lucky, though, because although my grad work was in education, it was not all that focused on nuts and bolts... which was in itself likely frustrating for some. On the bright side, though, nobody told me how to arrange chairs! :)

[bekkilyn]

With some few exceptions, the education classes I've been taking to get licensed to teach have had very little to do with anything that actually happens in a classroom. I'm currently in my student teaching semester and I find more and more that the classroom-based material has primarily been heavily idealistic and theoretical, and while it often looks very nice on paper, good luck actually implementing a lot of it in reality. The primary value I've gotten from those particular classes has been my meeting and associating with people who are or have been teachers, and other students who have similar goals to mine.

I think if I ever decide to go back to graduate school once my current goals are accomplished, I'll study something that isn't supposed to have any practical value in today's world, but do it just because I love it. (Something like Literature or theoretical Mathematics.) I've been very frustrated in the course my current education degree how very little of is relevant when we have high school students who can barely perform on an elementary level in some subjects. (I'll likely avoid any further Education degrees like the plague unless, as in Tammy's case, I received a very tangible benefit from doing so.)

[Gardnr]

I hear you. by the time I had $ for an MBA (we do not do college on loans), I had learned so much self-guided and workshops attended, and meeting with smart business people, I found the objectives of each course I reviewed to be repeats. I selected not to get the MBA. With my career goals, it would not matter and 20y later, that is still true.

I think the way to evaluate this is: what are your goals/asiprations? Does this degree get you where you want to be? Does it matter for you. Some people NEED those letters behind their names. Some people get the degree for themselves with no gain in mind.

Which person are you?

[Cypress]

Cypress, I think I'd comment with more or less what you posted here, and then continue with a critique as if it wasn't a test. E.g., "the use of vulgarity is not in keeping with professional journalism. That said, blah blah and blah."

Thanks Kib. I did as you suggested and a 2nd student backed me up on mentioning the obscenity finding it distasteful to read. If anything, it demonstrates that we are reading the material and applying proper technique to our critique.

[TxZen]

Ya know what? I just decided to go with the flow and let the Professors THINK they are doing us good. I have had too much real world experience to even begin to pretend anything I am learning will actually be applied. I call it a means to the first step in teaching for me. I am not going to stress myself out over all of this.