Posts Tagged formal education

Today’s words from the digital man cave are a dip back into the goodie bag to see what the world of higher education has been bringing to the table. It has been 10 weeks since the last update of this nature, and another quarter has come and gone. Papers have been completed, tests have been taken, projects have been completed, student satisfaction surveys have been filled out, and grades have been entered.

By all accounts it has been an interesting ride so far, and I’ve learned something that I’d like to share.

There is a disturbing number of liars and sadists working at institutions of higher education. And the liars are the worst because they lie about being sadists.

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Todays words from the digital man cave are a dip back in time to a post style that hasn’t been seen in over a month. Today we’re talking education again!

In the weeks since the end of last term and the beginning of this one I’ve run into a few situations that may be just what the doctor ordered/really bad news. I got a late start this quarter in terms of my classes. I was lazy and misread some information, an error that costs me several points (too many in fact)  and will quite possibly jeopardize my entire plan. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I was right about consequences being enforced and the proper use of punishment. Punishment can be just as useful a motivator as reward, it is just more difficult to use successfully.

I’ve also gotten a bit of a reminder about what types of courses do not go well together. A long time ago I learned that it was better for me to not pair math and science together in one term. You’d think it’d make each easier by association, but the similarity often causes confusion and mistaken identity in my memory. Apparently another bad choice for me is statistics and history together, though they are my to least favorite subjects so that is probably the reason why they don’t go well together for me.

But this brings me to my 1st main point: choice. If you’re going to pursue a graduate education, make sure you have choices in what you do and how you do it. Nothing can kill your desire quite like a lack of freedom.

Todays words from the digital man cave are about education. And a change in format. I’ve been doing this for 12 weeks now and it’s been a  good thing. I started this Sunday regular series for a few reasons. 1) I really wanted to stick to a set post schedule and I needed something consistent to nail that down. 2) I wanted to chronicle my adventures and misadventures in going back to school. 3) I needed a regular post topic to free up time and mindspace to work on other projects.

Well now that the first quarter is all done, I’m going to switch it up a little bit and not post about the educational world every week. The experiment was successful and I’ve got the schedule down. I’ll just post on it as things come up, and the week counter will still be kept for the frame of reference on how far along things have progressed.

I’m doing this so I can provide a little bit more varied content here at the digital man cave. Right now I’m only giving you the meat and potatoes once a week. I need the option to hit you with the double whammy on the regular. Other projects will continue as they have been… something about not being in an office right now makes it much easier to think and create. Go figure. You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with education and what have I learned over the last twelve weeks.

Well first, going back to school is not all it’s cracked up to be. When you’re out of school you kind of miss it. Don’t let the nostalgia fool you. The fact of the matter is, once you get out of school you fill your time with all sorts of other things. When you go back to school those other things don’t necessarily disappear, and change is rarely ever easy.

The second thing that has stuck out to me is that you sometimes want to plan ahead from your planning ahead. You got the feeling like something is about to blow up in your face, listen to it. Things come up. Gotta be able to adapt. Darwin wasn’t stupid. Whether or not you should care what he had to say is something that will probably never be debated here, but in modern life the law of the land is “he who is most adaptable will survive and thrive“.

Stay tuned to the digital man cave as you get more of what I hope you enjoy!

Todays words from the digital man cave are once again, on mastering education. This first session is almost over… This is the end of week 11, and nearly the end of the quarter. And what have I learned over these 11 short weeks? A number of things but this week I relearned a very valuable lesson.

Punishment has its placed in life.

At times, it is a very very useful tool. What I mean is that, it can be a motivator as well as a teacher. I think most people believe in the power of reinforcement as a teacher and motivator but I think punishment has its place too. For example, in the past couple weeks I was unable to turn in an assignment on time. I simply scheduled too many things to happen within the same few hours and it ended up coming to a point where I couldn’t complete my duties within the specified time limits. Well, the consequences of doing something like there have been spelled out since Week 1 Day 1 for me so I expected to receive adequate punishment.

Nothing.

Not a single thing was done about it. So where was my motivation the next time that situation came up? In the crapper, that’s where. And what was the lesson that I learned? I shouldn’t be so intent on following all of the set guidelines if the people in charge weren’t. This is bad. The punishment should have been there to teach me that the choices I make can have unfavorable consequences, and it should have been there to motivate me to not let it happen again.

See, punishment has its place. Especially in education. Then again, maybe I’m just being ungrateful for catching a lucky break…

What do you think?

If you were once in my situation, did not receiving an adequate punishment change the way you interacted with your education? Or were you just grateful to catch a break?

Let me know in the comments and stay tuned for more from the digital man cave!

Todays words from the digital man cave are celebratory. As in WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No I’m not done with the first quarter. I’ve got two more weeks officially. I’m celebrating because I’m almost done with the quarter and because I’m moving forward with my goals. Not all of them mind you, that list of goals is much longer. But on the grand flow chart of my life A LOT of my activities have a common goal. That goal is to work for myself when I say, how I say, and for as long as I say. In other words, I want to be the best and worst boss in my job history. If you’ve been keeping up with me a little bit, this isn’t new information.

What is new is that I’m doing things I didn’t consciously think I would ever do. Things I didn’t realize I had a silly mental roadblock about. Things where I told myself “I can’t do that. That’s not for me.” for no good reason. In fact pretty much everything I do now I had previously told myself I couldn’t do it. That’s cause for celebration. In school we’ve been learning about different ways to view one broad topic (psychology) and how they aren’t necessarily separate. They just tell different parts of the story, and give an overall narration from a different view point. Like the Jet Li movie Hero, except way less epic.

The things we do with our days, in life, are supposed to tell our story. Everything we is a piece of that story, a different perspective on the event that is your life. At least that is the way it is supposed to be. Is it for you? Are you spending your time writing your story? Or are you spending your time helping someone else write theirs? It’s OK in some cases to help others write theirs, like your kids for instance. Part of having kids is committing to devoting a few chapters of your book to their unique narration. But what about the rest of your life?

Who, if anyone, is writing your book?