Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Going Back To School

As all teachers know, you must continually go back to school to keep your license current, etc. That means more portfolio work, yada yada. I have been thinking about going back to school for some time but really not sure if I want to seek a master's degree in Education. I don't aspire to be a principal nor do I want to be a guidance counselor, so I felt stuck. I began to wonder if I could go back to school to learn more about criminal justice and use it towards my continuing education (CE) credits, so I emailed the head of licensing at IPFW.

I told J.B. (the head of teacher licensing at IPFW) about my job and how I seem to work in that world where criminal justice meets education. I told him that I knew the education side of things because that is my bachelor's degree, but how I often feel ignorant about the criminal justice side of things. I asked him, "Can I take credits outside of the world of education and have it count towards my CE credits? Do those classes have to be at the graduate level?"

This morning I was told that due to the nature of my job, Jim will allow me to take undergraduate classes in criminal justice and use those credits to count towards a Criminal Justice degree as well as my CE credits. I am excited. I am ready to pull out my backpack, pack some new pencils and pens and go back to school! I emailed my boss about taking summer classes and counting that time on my work time card. Hopefully he says yes. All that is left to do is figure out what classes I want to take and financial aid. I know that IPFW isn't "expensive" by some peoples standards, but right now I could use all the help I could get. I am actually excited about learning about an area I know very little about!

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