catching up
I sent this to my (former) department chair at school this morning, and thought it was a decent summary, so I'm putting it here.
Judy -
Sorry it's taken a while to get back to you - I've had a number of things to take care of in the last few weeks and I also needed to get a slightly firmer idea about what I was really doing.
I spent much of the summer doing work around the house, including building that front porch I've been avoiding for some time. Of course, that small amount of time paled in comparison to the real work of the summer, trying to figure out what to do with my life. The short form: I think I made the wrong decision. As the summer drew to a close, I found I was regretting more and more my decision not to come back.
There's a bright side to this, though: I talked to Jeff Hutton at XU (the education department person) and discovered that I was closer to my M.Ed than I thought, and also closer to my CS certification than I thought. BTW, there's a story about computer science certification in OH right now, and it looks like the State of Ohio, in its Infinite Wisdom, is trying to prevent anyone from teaching CS. To get a certificate under the current rules (about 30 hours), you need to finish by september next year. After that, it will be an endorsement (so you have to spend 30ish hours in some other field) and then 60 hours of CS work. In some fundamental sense, they are tripling the requirements to teach computers. Do you see any sense in that? Fortunately, I only need three more classes to finish my CS work to get that certificate. So guess where I'm going to be at 12:30? Back in the classroom, taking a course titled "Advanced Algorithms and Theory," followed at 3:00 by "Operating Systems."
I'm back at XU, in case that wasn't a big enough hint. I may look for a part time job somewhere nearby to take up some of my time, but I won't be programming for a career any time soon. It's strange how life works sometimes, that I would leave teaching to get one kind of job, then start really thinking about my motivations and what I want to do, and end up back in school continuing on a path I was on before I started teaching.
Those college students get younger every year. How many alumnae do we have at XU? I thought I recognized someone the other day, but without the uniform I'm never certain.
Feel free to share this with everyone, and say hello to everyone for me.
Peter
On Thursday, August 23, 2001, at 12:52 PM, jgerwe@nda-cvg.org wrote:
>
Hey Peter! I loved your New York Math joke. Thanks for sending it. How's it going for you? Did you find a new job? Let me know what's going on with your life. I hope everything is fine. Judy
Judy -
Sorry it's taken a while to get back to you - I've had a number of things to take care of in the last few weeks and I also needed to get a slightly firmer idea about what I was really doing.
I spent much of the summer doing work around the house, including building that front porch I've been avoiding for some time. Of course, that small amount of time paled in comparison to the real work of the summer, trying to figure out what to do with my life. The short form: I think I made the wrong decision. As the summer drew to a close, I found I was regretting more and more my decision not to come back.
There's a bright side to this, though: I talked to Jeff Hutton at XU (the education department person) and discovered that I was closer to my M.Ed than I thought, and also closer to my CS certification than I thought. BTW, there's a story about computer science certification in OH right now, and it looks like the State of Ohio, in its Infinite Wisdom, is trying to prevent anyone from teaching CS. To get a certificate under the current rules (about 30 hours), you need to finish by september next year. After that, it will be an endorsement (so you have to spend 30ish hours in some other field) and then 60 hours of CS work. In some fundamental sense, they are tripling the requirements to teach computers. Do you see any sense in that? Fortunately, I only need three more classes to finish my CS work to get that certificate. So guess where I'm going to be at 12:30? Back in the classroom, taking a course titled "Advanced Algorithms and Theory," followed at 3:00 by "Operating Systems."
I'm back at XU, in case that wasn't a big enough hint. I may look for a part time job somewhere nearby to take up some of my time, but I won't be programming for a career any time soon. It's strange how life works sometimes, that I would leave teaching to get one kind of job, then start really thinking about my motivations and what I want to do, and end up back in school continuing on a path I was on before I started teaching.
Those college students get younger every year. How many alumnae do we have at XU? I thought I recognized someone the other day, but without the uniform I'm never certain.
Feel free to share this with everyone, and say hello to everyone for me.
Peter
On Thursday, August 23, 2001, at 12:52 PM, jgerwe@nda-cvg.org wrote:
>
Hey Peter! I loved your New York Math joke. Thanks for sending it. How's it going for you? Did you find a new job? Let me know what's going on with your life. I hope everything is fine. Judy