No more nervous breakdowns. God knows the first one wasn't any fun.

[apocalypsos]

Ugh, somebody else come fill out financial aid forms and college loan applications and whatnot. *headdesk*

You know what it is? It's that doing all this makes me see myself in debt up to my ears all over again. Not that I'm not already in debt up to my ears, but ... well, you know. I think part of it is that the last two times I tried the college thing -- the first time when I cracked and flunked out and had what was probably a bit of a nervous breakdown over the whole thing, and the second time when I discovered just what a mess my college loan history really was -- I was trying to be very, very sensible about my majors and I picked stuff I figured would be of use. The first time I picked journalism, the second time I was going to try for something in IT.

This time ... fuck it, if I'm going back I'm going for a communications major with a concentration on writing. Creative writing, at that.

Is it sensible? Fuck, no. Will it make me happier having a degree in something I dearly love, regardless of the fact that getting published is so damn hard and I've been having miniature bouts of paranoia the past few months that I'm never, ever, EVER going to be published and I might as well give up and devote myself fully to the inbound call center industry? Hell, yes, it'll make me happier. Broke, but happier.

That said, the financial aid industry can go fuck itself sideways with a rusty chainsaw, honestly. There should be more people who will just fill out this stuff for students who see numbers attached to dollar signs and run away screaming.

With that in mind, I found a college tag. So I've got that accomplished, I suppose.

Comments

[offtheceiling.livejournal.com]

lol that is the exact major/minor i graduated with. except mine was communications with a ~specialty in radio/tv. and i work in radio! so it was somewhat successful, yay?

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

Do what makes you happy. I've done that so far and it's really been amazing.

You will feel old. Just warning you now. But it's refreshing most of the time...the kids do stupid things, but the drama doesn't splash on you!

Get involved with the college radio station! It's awesome fun. :D

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

The great thing is that this is the same weekender program my mom graduated from, so even if I feel old I can always remind myself that my mom started it waaaaay later than I will have. ;)

[cmpriest.livejournal.com]

I don't know who your loans are through (of course), but I had a similarly checkered past with regards to such things. Then, after I finally finished grad school (at which point I had loans from 5 different banks/companies) ... I consolidated the lot of them through EdAmerica.

Now it's just one bill, nice low interest rate, and they were very flexible and accommodating when I was unemployed for six months.

I'd actually heard good things about EdAmerica from both my undergrad and grad schools; and when I finally looked into them, I have to admit that I was surprised by how easy they were to work with - and how easy they've been to work with since.

Anyway, there's my two cents.
One liberal arts major to another.

Edited to add - Come to think of it, I believe they've done some reorganizing. You may need to go through EdFinancial (same company, still). Regardless, the financial/accounting department of any university ought to be able to point you in the correct direction. They're very well-known/widely used.

[laughingrat.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be an English major? Or is cultural analysis passe to colleges these days, so they've renamed English "Communication"?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

No, not specifically an English major. It's a small college, so most of their major are very utilitarian. It's definitely a communications major (I'd probably try to minor in digital media, since minoring in a language isn't available like I'd really like), but there's a track of classes that leans more towards a concentration in writing careers (features, creative writing, children's lit).

[laughingrat.livejournal.com]

That's what the community college here has done with English, too. My cynical side says it's because they don't want people learning to question culture too much... One thing the trustees or whoever makes those decisions (it sure as heck wasn't our English department, they're miserable over it) overlooked is that to write well, you have to read well, too, and learn how to think about what you're reading. That's why so many of our students write so poorly, and the teachers who assign their students to read essays, fiction, and poetry wind up with the students who write the best.

ANYWAY, college politics, phooey. Point is, you're going back to school and you're picking a major that'll be good for you as a person! That's fabulous!

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

My cynical side says it's because they don't want people learning to question culture too much...

I've never gotten the impression that's the case with Keystone, though. It's not a bad college by any means, but there's a lot of stuff they don't offer just because they're not a large school and a lot of students use their classes there as preparation to move on to bigger schools. So, they don't have to offer a minor in, say, German like I'd like, because the assumption is that any student who wanted to take classes in it could do so when they move on to their next school, and that the people there do the weekender programs because they have full-time jobs to worry about are there to improve their standings in the work environment, not gorge themselves on poetry and heavy literature.

From what I remember of my mom's classes, a lot of it was pared down to the most useful stuff. I think the only class she took that I'm not sure she got a lot of real use out of in her everyday life was children's lit, which I'm dying to take because they write their own children's book as an assignment.

[laughingrat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what a lot of local or small colleges do, as far as courses. They just can't offer everything, or offer everything in depth. The writing program at yours sounds pretty impressive, lots better than our community college's program; the fact that they offer children's lit is really cool. :-D

[hellziggy.livejournal.com]

Love your college tag!
Now you need music to go with it. Go download Sunspot's "More Than My Degree" for free here: http://sunspot.bandcamp.com/track/more-than-my-degree