So as I take the last courses for my Master's I've come to terms with something that's really important to my academic future: When it comes to doctoral work, I'm just not interested in doing another huge chunk of coursework. I'd really rather do some research. That's a big deal, because it means that all the American programs I've considered are off the table, as would be the program at Leicester. In fact, the only one left that I was considering that's conducive to that is working with Johannes at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. But maybe it's good that I've come full circle on this -- I like Johannes a lot, we have compatible interests, he's interested in working with me, and it's the least expensive option by an order of magnitude. What reason to keep looking could there be?
It's unfortunate that that trip to Cape Town I mentioned last year ended up getting scrubbed, meaning I didn't get the chance to visit CPUT. Still, I've never even been to the school where I finished my BS and can count on one hand the number of times I've been to GW, so that's not really that big a deal. It would still be nice to check it out, though, if I get the chance, especially since Johannes seemed so hospitable when I thought I was going to be in town. Maybe later....
Labels: grad school
Meet Jorge Cham. He's the creator of "Piled Higher and Deeper", a comic strip about life in graduate school. He's also a cartoonist who's found some success publishing his work through a web site rather than the traditional format of a daily newspaper. One might think that this would lead him to be more receptive to the idea that using the Internet as a vehicle for education is a sign of increased flexibility rather than decreased rigor.
Unfortunately, if
one of his recent cartoons is any indication, this is not so. Given the gratuitous use of the word "online" and that the name of the school mentioned is a mix of "Walden" and "Capella", it seems the strip shows more how Dr. Cham feels about online education than about degree mills. Moreover, Walden and Capella are also a conspicuous pair in that they're both prominent proprietary institutions. So it seems his naysaying would also be broad enough also to include on-campus programs at other such institutions, such as the University of Phoenix.
One often sees truly insightful commentary from the best cartoonists. In this case, however, it seems that as with too many others in higher education, Dr. Cham does not understand the difference between academic rigor and mere inflexibility. For an online cartoonist to instead deliver a tired kneejerk salute to "That's the way we've always done it" is a real disappointment.
Labels: grad school
So, the last step before applying to any of these doctoral programs, is, of course, to finish the Master's degree. I have two courses to go, but now that I work at Marymount I figured I'd rather take two courses there for free this term and transfer them back to GW to wrap things up rather than pay to take courses at GW, however good they may be.
So because of my concern about using too much leave, and because GW was concerned that the course I was going to take might be too similar to another I've already taken, I found an alternative, a nice course called "Cross-cultural/International Curricula" that, while occurring in a classroom rather than online, is still also an extremely good match for my interests. I sent the syllabus to my faculty advisor at GW,
Ryan Watkins, and his response in part was:
Given the situation this sounds like a fine choice to me... it does have a nice match with your long-term interests. My only disappointment with the syllabus is that it will be a campus-based course. Can you really learn in that archaic format? Do they have to check your ID to make sure that it is really you coming to class? Can people really learn with out continuous access to the Web? Hahahahaaaa
It's certainly nice to see butt-in-seat learning get some of the same undeserved criticism that distance learning gets for a change! Of course, at the same time, I'm also glad Ryan approved the course, you know, despite his reservations.
Labels: grad school
A number of interesting opportunities to travel have been coming my way, so I've been figuring out how I'm going to sort out how much annual leave I have with how much traveling I want to do. Get this:
- Marymount is offering a class that I could use as my last Master's elective. The course takes place over a single week in March, all day for five days. I'd have to use a week of leave to attend it, but that's one course out of the way at pretty much the fastest possible speed. Plus it's a course in Technology Leadership that looks genuinely interesting.
- Heather Ford of iCommons emailed me asking whether I can come to Johannesburg early next year for a gathering of people who will plan next summer's iSummit.
- Wayne Mackintosh has suggested that the WikiEducator Advisory Board should meet early next year in Nairobi, Kenya.
- PCF5 will be in London in July.
- The 2008 iCommons Summit will be in Sapporo in August.
- I'd been considering New Mexico State University, but I'll need two weeks of leave to do their summer residency.
Now, when I went to Croatia, I didn't have to use leave, but that was sort of nice of my supervisor here. I don't expect that items 4 and 5 are both going to be leave-free trips this time around.
It also occurs to me that even if can sort out all these things, I only get two weeks of leave a year, so if I do the NMSU program then barring a change of diurnal activity I will use annual leave for nothing else until 2011.
I don't want to give up on a doctoral program but I also don't want to give up on the work I'm doing through WikiEducator or iCommons. A friend of mine has a colorful way of describing situations like this: "I'm holding a red stick in this hand, and a blue stick in this hand. I'm going to hit you with one of these sticks, but, hey, you get to pick which one."
So I'm trying to decide with which stick I want to be hit, basically. I've only used one day of leave since I got here, and I get just ten days per year (Oh, to be French!) so if I take a normal course rather than that week-long one and take NMSU off the list of consideration in favor of zero-residence (or local) doctoral programs, then between this year and next year I have nineteen days of leave to sort out all the other trips. That I think I could do. Still, sheesh!
Labels: grad school
So as if things weren't already muddled enough, I got an email out of the blue yesterday from the Education department at New Mexico State University. They have a PhD program in Curriculum and Instruction that has emphases in social justice and instructional technology, which means that they'd probably be a good fit with my interests in open educational resources and international education. They also offer in state rates to out of state students not taking more than six credit-hours per term, around which this program seems purposefully designed, making it less expensive than to do a program at George Mason University or the University of Virginia -- the only local options still on the table.
They also require two-week residencies on their main campus in Las Cruces for three summers in a row. I'm of two minds on this. On the one had, that's six credit hours in two weeks, which it pretty motivating. That also means that out of forty-eight credits, more than one third are earned in a classroom, which ought to make it more palatable to those who are biased against distance learning. On the other hand, that's an inconvenient amount of time away from home, and I'd have to see how my supervisor would feel about what kind of leave I would use. (My preference, of course, would be administrative leave rather than annual leave.)
But anyway, it's yet another program to consider. For those who came in late, that means I'm up to five, in no particular order:
- Doctor of Technology program, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (South Africa)
- PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, New Mexico State University
- Doctor of Social Science in Human Resource Development, University of Leicester (UK)
- PhD in Cultural Studies, George Mason University (Northern Virginia)
- EdD in Administration and Supervision, University of Virginia
They're all very different from one another, and they all have very different pros and cons. I've been fine with that, since it wasn't nearly time to apply, but now that's changing and I'm going to have to stop dithering and start really deciding.
Labels: grad school
So this semester I was supposed to take my last two courses at GW, but a number of things that have happened at the last minute have changed my approach a little.
One thing is that I discovered that the University of Leicester has a
doctoral program in Human Resource Development that looks like it's about halfway between education and business. Since my ultimate interests are about halfway between education and business, that's a program that has my attention. It doesn't hurt that it's only £11250, which even with the U.S. dollar in the gutter is only about $22,500. Now, that's a lot more than the program at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, but it's on par with the least expensive American or British programs. Leicester also evidently participates in the U.S. financial aid system, suggesting I could defer my existing loans while a student with them and take out more to cover tuition. Leicester is also a top 25 university in the UK, and a top 200 university in the world, which means it ranks higher even than GW, from where my Master's will ultimately come.
So how does that affect what courses I take to complete my Master's? Well, I need Instructional Design and one other course to finish up. I can take courses at Marymount for free and GW will accept them in transfer. Instructional Design at Marymount is in the Human Resource Management department, and there are a variety of other Human Resource Management courses that should transfer as my final elective. If I take these courses instead of the ones at GW, I stand a better chance of Leicester accepting my Master's as sufficient preparation for entry into their program (should I ultimately decided to apply to them).
It's not a downside to me that these courses will start in January, rather than GW ones that would start now. This semester will be a busy one for me at Marymount, so a little more breathing room will be helpful. Besides, I still need to do my comps, and now I can focus on them and take them this semester without also worrying about other courses.
So that's the longer and windier road as it stands now....
Labels: grad school
I signed up for my final two Master's courses at George Washington University yesterday. I've waited two extra semesters for them to be available and they're the last two courses for me. I look forward to having them finally done by mid-December and being able to concentrate what time I have for study entirely on doctoral work.
Speaking of, in an interesting twist to the story my prospective doctoral supervisor at the University of Pretoria isn't at the University of Pretoria anymore. Johannes has taken up the post of Dean of Informatics at
Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town. I gather that as a university recently formed from the merger of the Cape Town area's two technikons that CPUT isn't as well known as the more established universities. However, Johannes seems keen to shift their emphasis from exclusively teaching to research, and he's suggested I work their
e-Innovation Academy, which is geared toward the intersection of technology, business, government, and society.
Conveniently, I'll be in Cape Town next month for a meeting of OER practitioners sponsored by the Shuttleworth Foundation and by going a little early I get to meet Johannes in person and check out his new surroundings. It should be interesting!
Labels: grad school
I finally had the chance to speak live (albeit only by phone) with
Dr. Johannes Cronje, the fine gentleman I've been referring to as a prospective doctoral supervisor at the University of Pretoria. After that great, positive conversation, I'm willing to commit: I'll be doing my PhD through the University of Pretoria.
My reasons include:
- I like my supervisor, and think we'll get on well. He's interested in my topic, open educational resources, and we seem to share a dismissive attitude toward bureaucracy. Critically, he also has a great deal of experience supervising doctoral students, including externally. (I have the feeling he's fun at parties, too.)
- It's not on the North American model, so I don't need to do any coursework, other than to gain specific knowlege. I may take a course in Statistics to bone up on quantitative research methods, but I can do that for free at Marymount and that's fine with Johannes.
- I can write a series of articles rather than a monograph. This interests me because I'm interested in several different aspects relating to OERs, so once I have a lit review done I'll want to go in a few directions, but doing so at article length rather than a monolithic monograph is better suited for my temperament. This is also good in that by the time I'm done I'll have at least five publishable scholarly articles.
- Pretoria's on the list of the top 500 universities in the world as ranked by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It was in the 401-500 list, which it shares with such institutions as Boston College, Drexel University, and the College of William and Mary.
- It's a South African institution, which means it has the developing world perspective I want, but without the lack of resources that usually accompanies it. And since South Africa's a Commonwealth country, a degree from Pretoria ought to be locally well received when Adella and I eventually return to the West Indies.
- The cost is one tenth what an American school would be. That's not to say that's how one should choose one's alma mater, but saying that saving a truckload of money didn't interest me wouldn't pass anyone's straight face test.
- I won't have to go to South Africa to do this. However, I'll want to visit, should circumstances permit, say for defenses, even if they could be done by videoconferencing. And there's graduation. I haven't gone to one yet, but for the PhD, that seems worth it.
So that's where I am. I'll apply for provisional acceptance now, and start doing my literature review while finishing my courses at GW, then hopefully in January I'll be registered there. Go Tukkies!
Labels: grad school, international education
One of the problems with doing a research-based program mostly by email correspondence is that one is limited by the other person's rate of response. For example, I sent my prospective doctoral advisor an email regarding the possibility of meeting him when he comes to Atlanta next month, but have not heard back after almost a week.
I suppose emails get lost, and people are busy and respond when they can. And I realize I'm only a prospective student. But I'm reminded of a friend's experience trying to do a PhD through South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand, in which after almost a year of correspondence, suddenly there was nothing but silence from his advisor. I suppose this is a somewhat scary way of doing it.
At least in the meantime I've found even more to like about the University of Pretoria. It turns out that one of the two well known global rankings of universities, the one from the Institute of Higher Education at
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, lists it among those that are 401-500 on the list. It being considered among the top 500 universities in the world is not too shabby. There are only three others in South Africa that made the top 500: Witwatersrand, Cape Town, and KwaZulu-Natal.
Anyway, back to waiting. I remind myself that it's not like Johannes owes me a quick reply or that when I sent was particularly time sensitive. I suppose it's just that I'm just excited to move forward.
Labels: grad school, international education
I said yesterday that not everything was bad for my grad school endeavors in the last few months. The good thing that may be happening is that I've corresponded with a potential doctoral research advisor.
See, I knew way back when I was going back to finish my Bachelor's that I was starting a long road that would culminate with a PhD. I know that may make it seem like I'm a glutton for punishment, or that I'm taking going back to school to an unreasonable extreme, but my goal is to be able to start my own institution, or at least to be able to consult on distance learning, and that pretty much means a PhD is a requirement.
The next question was where. Doing my Master's through George Washington University was an easy choice, as it had an unbeatable combination of ideal subject matter, high prestige, and low cost. There was no obvious doctoral program, though. At some point in the last two years I've considered all of the following:
- The insanely expensive Executive Doctor of Education in Higher Ed Management at the University of Pennsylvania. Sure there's a $100,000 price tag, but it's an Ivy League school and it's ranked seventh among U.S. graduate schools of education. Moreover, the entire program can be completed start to finish in two years -- including dissertation. Ultimately I succumbed to sticker shock. Some people may have their employers helping them pay for that program. I would not.
- Staying on and getting an EdD through George Washington. The thing is that the tuition rate for that program would be a lot higher than what I'm paying for my Master's there, and my total would ultimately be something like fifty grand. That's still a lot of debt to incur, especially with four kids who themselves will be starting college in just eight years.
- The local state school, George Mason University, has a PhD in International Education. Total debt incurred on this one would be about twenty to twenty-five grand, still a lot, but less obscene than some other options.
One major problem with all of these is that they'd require me to darken the door of a classroom again. Sure, I'm burned out for now, but I'm mostly tired of coursework that desn't pertain to my interests. Besides, I like distance learning and don't really want to go back to the hassle of parking in remote lots and running through the rain to try not to be late for class. Unfortunately, in the U.S. that doesn't leave a lot of good options. All of the American institutions I could find that had PhD programs in Education by distance learning were (1) the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, which is inexpensive and well regarded, but has little track record with my particular research interests; (2) Fielding Graduate University, which is expensive and also has little track record with my particular research interests; (3) evangelical schools like Liberty University (Jerry Falwell is not my cup of tea); or (4) poorly regarded for-profit institutions that I wouldn't want my CV to touch with a bargepole.
Fortunately, unlike many Americans, I'm aware that the world doesn't stop at the border. Because of my inclination toward seeing what foreign systems have to offer, I found that there are a number of universities in South Africa that are ridiculously inexpensive because of the rand being so devalued even compared with the U.S. dollar, yet are well regarded internationally. Better yet, having come from the European model, doctoral programs consist of the dissertation only, and do not involve all the coursework that is attendant with American programs. Given that my research interest involves developing world issues, I also appreciated the potential usefulness of studying through a university that, while having developed world standards and resources, is itself in a developing country. I also found that there were more people interesting in Open Educational Resources internationally than were in the U.S.
I kept South Africa options in the back of my mind as I went through all the local options, but when nothing American seemed right, I started shaking my tree to see if any good contacts in South African academia would fall out. And as of recently, I've been corresponding with an interesting Education faculty member at the
University of Pretoria, and so far I feel strongly that this is the right path for me. It's not the lower cost, although I'll admit that's not exactly a drawback. It just seems like a better process, and a way of moving forward that's more in tune with my long-term interests.
Anyway, I may be meeting him in late February or early March, the next time he'll be in the U.S. I suppose we'll see.
Labels: grad school
So the last few months have been pretty tempestuous for my academic career, although not all bad.
First, some background. In 2004 I decided that since I was working in a university setting, and planned to do so for the foreseeable future, it was time for me to go back to school to finish my Bachelor's, and then go on for graduate study. In addition, I'd long had the back burner idea of starting an online university, and realized that it would be completely impossible to move forward on something like that without academic credibility.
I had a little bit of credit from each of a pretty large number of places, as I had often taken a few courses here and there at whatever schools were convenient. I found out about a Connecticut state school called
Charter Oak State College, which would allow me to transfer in all of my credit, as well as a Microsoft certification I'd picked up along the way, and would let me finish most of the rest through CLEP tests. By the middle of 2005 I had done this and had finally knocked that out of the way. I'd settled on a Master's program by then, the
Master's in Educational Technology Leadership at George Washington University in D.C. GW is ranked in the top 25 nationwide for graduate schools of education, and the program was a steal at $12,000 total tuition.
I'd chosen early on to take an unusually fast clip, taking three courses at a time while still working full time. This was difficult, but meant I would finish in four semesters rather than six. Especially working in a university environment, I felt far behind my colleagues, and wanted to catch up as quickly as possible. I worked hard, and after three semesters I had a GPA of 3.77 and felt I was in the home stretch.
I was wrong.
In what was supposed to be my final semester, Fall 2006, I started off with a number of drawbacks I hadn't faced before. Attrition on my team at the university where I was working meant I had a lot less time in the day to devote to studying. The demands of my family were as strong as ever. I switched to Marymount near the end of the semester when I was trying to catch up. And worst of all, when I did find time to study I was constantly enervated by a terrible feeling of burnout.
The result of all this was that I managed to flunk not just one, but two of the three courses. Worse again, one of them was a required course that is only offered annually. So much for completing the Master's in December 2006, now I was looking at December 2007.
So that's where I am now. There's nothing I can take in the Spring, although I do plan to take my comprehensive exams and get those out of the way. I'll take my last elective in the Summer, and retake that required course in the Fall.
Then I'll be done with it. Well, until doctoral work, but that's for another post....
Labels: grad school
