Grad school drop-out

Oh, faithful blog readers (all four of you), I have some sad news to share. As much as I've loved attending my once-a-week night class, I'm withdrawing. My class is on Wednesday nights and so far, I've been making it work with my job.

If you don't know, I do community outreach/public relations. Without getting too specific (I hear horror stories only too often about posting work-related tidbits on personal blog sites), this includes a number of things, one of them being to organize and facilitate public and neighborhood meetings to answer questions and present information in the community as it relates to my organization. Sometimes these meetings are planned out far in advance, in which case I'm able to somewhat control which day of the week they fall on. Sometimes, however, members of the community ask to meet with us (myself and other staff members) at a moment's notice. For example, I got a call this afternoon asking if we could attend a community council meeting this Wednesday night. Seeing as this is a primary part of my job responsibilities, I'm not exactly in the position to say no. I also haven't been with my job long enough to ask anyone else to cover it for me and have that be okay. I know way too many people right now who can't find a job at all -- I'm not about to make myself dispensable at work, especially since I've been there for under a year.

This would be my second absence in the class. I'd already arranged to miss another class later this month because I'll be in San Francisco for a work conference. Because the class only meets once a week for three hours, missing two classes during the semester automatically drops your grade to a "C." I understand this. It's not the school's responsibility to cater to my work schedule. It's a master's level course -- missing one three-hour class is equivalent to missing three regular classes. Missing two is sort of ridiculous. I'm not willing to take a "C" in a class I would easily earn an "A" in had I been able to attend each meeting.

I was momentarily devastated. I love that class. I loved being back in school. But for some reason, it's just not meant to be right now. When I let my boss know I would be attending school in the evenings, it was understood that it would not be at the expense at my job duties. And that's reasonable: I have a full-time, salary position; it's not a clock-in, clock-out, work-around-school job. Things might be different if I'd been with my job for a couple of years already. But as it is, I'm still sort of new. And, as I mentioned in a couple of posts ago, I'm not committed enough to quit working and go to school full time. My job comes with two major things I'm not willing to give up: good (enough) pay (for now) and health benefits. Even for something as noble as higher education.

I know I'll be able to start my master's up again sometime in the future. If there's one thing this class has shown me in the last month, it's that I absolutely want to pursue graduate work when the time is right. Now just didn't work out; that's okay. It will. It just sucks that I have to eat the money I paid for the course.

I have some plans for the future, and I'll be sure to share them if they pan out.

Otherwise, we're doing just great. The snow has let up, although I think we can expect some more on Friday. Dan just gave his first major presentation in school and did fantastic. We'll be heading to Vegas in March, San Francisco/Napa Valley in May (hopefully with Tony&co.) and Washington, DC in July to visit my mom. Don't worry, she's not leaving my dad or anything -- she just got an amazing offer to teach a summer physics course to enlisted Marines who have been selected to become officers and thus must attend college. So she'll be out there for nine weeks on active duty (if you don't know, my mom spend 12 years active duty in the Marine Corps before getting out. She's still a reservist).

So that's it for now. Time to watch something trashy on TV or something.