Dec 13 2008
victory is mine!
dr. dept. chair: so get me up to speed here, and well, uh, what's the goal of our meeting today?
me: graduation
dr. dc: haha, yes we-
me: and i need to understand what happened with the independent study thing, because i can't. i don't feel like i'm getting any help. quite the opposite, in fact.
dr. dc: right well, how far along in the program are you?
me: i need two more classes
dr. dc: ok, so 24 hours, what have you taken?
me: the required ones: practical literary criticism, brit lit 1 & 2, the 20th century readings class now. and um, nature writing, writing & social issues, creative writing, the life writing now... is that it? yeah.
dr. dc: ok. so you are willing to take the writing class next semester?
me: i'm willing if that's not the only thing i'm taking. reading the description doesnt' enthrall me, and as it is writing and identity and there's bound to be overlap with the life writing class i'm in now. i dont really want to come take just that.
dr. dc: (frowning in that thinking sort of way) the idea of the non-thesis track was to present a broader education for someone who either has no interest in writing a thesis at all or is more interested on doing that kind of writing on the doctoral level. we've never had anyone come in and take all writing classes. I'm really interested to see how your Graduate Exam* turns out.
me: yeah, i wanted to study writing. i'm non-thesis is partly because i went here for undergrad and was in the honors program, so i have written one - it was terrible, but still - but mostly because i wasn't an english major in undergrad, so i wanted to take the two extra classes. gotta love irony.
dr. dc: right. so would it be horrible to take writing class in the spring and then take the creative writing dr. hutchins in the summer? you can take up to six hours of that.
me: (interior monologue: ug! ug ug. ug. why is this so hard? you all have doctorates for crying out loud!) ok. i'm not crazy about the idea of dragging out graduation for months to have my last two classes be one i've taken and one that is eh. especially when i was pretty excited about the prospect of that independent study class. the three of us came up with a class, and had a professor willing to teach it as long as she got paid.
dr. dc: well, there are two reasons we really don't like those and why i usually deny them. one, the teachers don't really get paid, it's not much at all, and a few years ago they had really gotten out of hand, almost every professor had two or three. plus we like to fill classes, and we like to think students learn better from a class environment. basically, there are reasons from a long time ago that have nothing to do with you.
me: exactly. and i'm a nerd, i like going to class, but with the three of us doing it together, we can still have that a little.
dr. dc: (frowning thoughtfully again) what was the class going to be?
me: i'm not 100% sure what dr.c was going to make it, other than something to do with children's lit, folktales and fairy tales, which are things i'm really interested in. when i was first thinking about coming here, i was really excited to learn that there was a graduate class in that kind of stuff, but apparently it's on quite a long cycle and i've missed it. so i was really excited and hopeful about the possibility of still getting to take it. you took my carrot.
dr. dc: well, that does make some difference. i think there are more than enough extenuating circumstances, and you've taken away every good reason i have to say no
me: do you have any mediocre ones, i'll fix those too
dr. dc: (laughing) no, those usually come later. ok, well, really thank you for um, not going away on this, because this is something we were obviously not prepared for with the non-thesis track and certainly need to do some thinking about. i'll need to work this out with dr. head-of-grad-english and decide whether it will be just the three of you or if we'll make it a class open to more students. we'll have to look at dr. c's schedule. but there's no reason something can't work out.
me: really? thank you so much. i guess someone will let me know in time to register?
dr. dc: yeah, there's always registration in january. is there any reason you need to pre-register?
me: well, you have to be pre-registered to apply for the department scholarships, but the deadline's passed, so not really.
dr. dc: well, go ahead and apply, i'll let them know. it's certainly not your fault that you weren't pre-registered.
me: thanks! and thanks again. happy holidays!
dr. dc: thank you. and you, too.
* instead of a thesis, the non-thesis track requires two extra classes and a graduate exam, composed by a commmittee based on everything i've written/the classes i've taken in grad school.