The Long Road to My Degree

The Goal: Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) 4-Year Honours – English Major, Psychology and Religion Minors.

A Bit of Terminology/Explanation:
A course which takes 3 months or 1 term to complete = 3 credit hours.
100 level = 1st year class
200 level = 2nd year class The higher the level,
300 level = 3rd year class the more difficult the course.
400 level = 4th year class

The total requirement for a B.A. 4-Year Honours is 120 credit hours.

To get any B.A. at Brandon University you must have 6 credit hours in each of three specified course areas:
Humanities (ex. English, History, French, Music, Philosophy, Religion);
Social Sciences (ex. Business Administration, Economics, Native Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology);
and Natural Sciences (ex. Botany, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Mathematics, Zoology).

English Major 4-Year Honors requires:
a minimum of 48 credit hours with only 6 of those at the 100 Level and at least 27 at the 300/400 Level, plus only 6 of the 48 credit hours can be from Creative Writing.
And just in case that isn’t enough…let me explain the Historical Breadth Requirement:
I have to take a minimum of 18 credit hours from the following list of courses:
Greek Poetry in Translation Victorian Poetry
Greek Drama in Translation Victorian Prose
Latin Literature in Translation Medieval Drama
Women Writers I Old English Literature
Chaucer and his Contemporaries Literature of the Sixteenth Century
Shakespeare Milton
Literature of the Seventeenth Century Beowulf
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature History of Literary Criticism
Romantic Literature Contemporary Critical Theory
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy Middle English Romance
If you can believe it, this is actually one of the easier degrees in terms of meeting the requirements.

4-Year Minor in Psychology requires:
credit in 82:160 (Introduction to Psychology) and 82:161 (General Psychology) plus a minimum of 12 additional credit hours in Psychology.

4-Year Minor in Religion requires:
a minimum of 18 credit hours in Religion.

How Close I Am:
The Facts:
Since I am majoring in English and minoring Psychology, I have already met the general B.A. requirement of 6 credit hours in the area of both Humanities and Social Sciences.
I have completed a total of 9 of 48 credit hours in English (including 6 at the 100 Level – meaning I must take only 200 Level and up until I am finished). I have no credit hours as of yet for the Historical Breadth Requirement.
I have completed 6 of 18 credit hours in Psychology (including 82:160 and 82:161 – the required classes – meaning now I can take whatever I want).
I have completed 6 or 18 credit hours in Religion.
I have 30 transfer credits from Assiniboine Community College in the area of Business Administration (basically this does nothing other than fill electives for me, but that’s ok, every little bit helps!).
The Conclusion:
In total I have completed 51 credit hours of the required 120, meaning I need 69 more credit hours. I need 39 more credit hours in English (27 of which have to be at the 300/400 Level and 18 of which have to be from the list of Historical Breadth classes). I need 12 more credit hours in both Psychology and Religion. Amazingly my requirements equal out to 69 credits!

How Long This is Going to Take Me:
After trial and success and trial and near insanity, I have concluded that while working full-time I can handle 12 credit hours a year (15 if I take a class in the summer). Taking 12 credit hours a year it will take me 6 years to finish, taking 15 credit hours in a year it will take me 5 years.

Observation:
I’ve been working on my degree for two years now and my goal is to complete it in ten. The odds are in my favor!

The Basics - School

In the beginning...just kidding...anyway I graduated from Assiniboine Community College in June of 2004 with a Diploma in Business Administration-Management Specialty. It was a great 2-year program and I loved it. I met great people, students and instructors, and learned a heck of a lot about the real world. My college education got me my incredible job at Brandon University and now I am using my "ins" at BU to work on a Bachelor's Degree. By "ins" I mean I don't have to pay tuition...only student fees to further my education so I figured I had better take advantage of that! I started taking one class (Introduction to English Literature) that extended for both terms so September to April. Realizing that one class was easy enough to handle I decided to take two the next term (September to December) and so took Introduction to Psychology and Women Writers II. Once again, I realized that two classes were not bad and in the next term (January to April) took three classes. I am currently in the process of finishing General Psychology, Health Care Ethics, and Sex and The Sacred (which is a religion course by the way). Taking three classes per term qualifies me as a full-time student, albeit a full course load would be five classes. Basically I take two classes in the evening (three hours, two nights a week) and one class during the day (one hour Monday, Wednesday, Friday). The goal is to obtain a Bachelor of Arts with an English Major with Psychology and Religion minors. I figured it out and my projected time frame in which to finish and graduate is about 6 to 8 years from now. Slowly, but surely, I will get my degree!

April 9th (tomorrow) marks the first day for registration for classes for the 07-08 academic year. I will be registering in Creative Writing (Monday, Wednesday 3:40-5:00), Shakespeare (Tuesday nights) and Art Works (Wednesday nights). Creative Writing and Art Works are strictly first term classes and Shakespeare will take both terms to complete. As for second term I will be registering for Women Writers I (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and Religion and Film (Wednesday nights). Wish me luck and learning!

The Basics - Work

Let's see...I started working at Brandon University in 2004, August to be exact. I actually applied for a different position than the one I was hired for, albeit the positions were in the same departmental office. I started out in a temporary position for the purpose of taking over for a lady who was set to retire in the next few years. Sadly...the lady passed away shortly after I started due to complications with her disease and associated surgery. Nice way to get a job huh!? I worked in the position as a temporary employee until January of 2005 at which point I had to re-apply for the position, be re-interviewed, and take a typing test (which I didn't have to do the first time around). Since I am still currently working for Brandon University in the same position, I was obviously the chosen candidate for the permanent position. That day, January 17th, 2005 will go down as one of the best days of my life. The security of knowing you have a stable job inevitably creates a comforting feeling like no other. With that said I have been working in Ancillary Services for almost 3 full years now. Bet you are wondering what Ancillary Services is...lucky for you I am about to kibosh the suspence! Ancillary Services is a subordinate department of Brandon University, basically "ancillary" means "revenue generating". So I work prodominantly with all aspects of Residence life, meaning applications for accommodation, room assignments, account set up, etc. I also deal with parking services on campus, the generating of student identification cards, special conferences that require casual accommodation in our residences, and oh so much more! All in all I love my job. I work jointly with one other person in my office (she's my mom's age so it makes things interesting to say the least) and have two bosses. One sort-of "sub-boss" and one "big cahoona". All three of them are great people and a joy to work with (for the majority of the time anyway...nothing's perfect right?!) My favorite part is working with the students. Each year we get a brand new group (some returning faces too) which keeps things interesting and always active. I do so many different things in my job it is hard to explain it to people...so questions are more than welcome here! One other little tid bit...I received my pension statement the other day (funny to a 23 year old) and my projected year of retirement is 2049! Oh my is all I have to say..."oh my"!

The Basics - Living Arrangements

I am currently living with my boyfriend (Bryan) at his parents house in Brandon. Not the greatest arrangement, but livable for now. Why you might ask...well we are saving to build a house next summer and paying approximately $1000 a month in rent and bills in our apartment was just not condusive to saving any money whatsoever. Needless to say we moved into the basement of Bryan's parents house sacrificing some privacy and peacefulness, but gaining some considerable funds in our savings account. Lucky for me, my inlaws (not quite since we aren't married, but that's what I refer to them as) are the most incredible people ever. Of course, everyone has their downfalls, but I can honestly say that I am one of the lucky ones. No horrific mother/father/sister/brother in-law stories from this gal. The plan is to move into an apartment again at the end of the summer (as thankful as I am, I just don't think I can take another winter with the adopted fam). Hopefully Denina (my sister) will be in Brandon by then too and she'll be our other roomy to help with rent and other bills. If all goes as planned we will start building in April of 2008! Yay! Why build you might ask...well this is again where my amazing in-laws come into play. You see Bryan's Dad is a draftsman/carpenter and is going to build it for us saving us the cost of labour and building us our dream home exactly as we want it! It's exciting and only a short year (and a lot of saving) away!

Starting Out!

This is me starting out. I am trying to figure out how to get a profile picture so this is me trying to follow the "Help"!

Got it...Yay!