Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Go easy or suck it up?

This semester I was a full-time student in early childhood. Outside of the regular reading, you do a lot of activity and program planning. You also have to do classroom observations and find a focal child to visit every week to complete the appropriate lab work. It's a lot of organizing time and schedules: my schedules, other families' schedules, school schedules, etc. 

I decided I was only going to do school part-time in the fall. But I'm conflicted. Mostly because one of my "required" classes is available online. So I feel like going on campus T/Th for an hour and 15 minutes isn't a lot of time, even though the class may require more scheduling. Right now I'm registered for "Child Psychology" online and "Literature and Language in Early Education." I'm thinking about taking a small 2-credit course, "Math and Science." Because, let's face it, the sooner I get the credits out of the way, the sooner I'll get to my practicum (student teaching) and the more skilled I'll feel about applying for jobs.

On the other hand, I feel pretty pushed to the limit this semester. And I plan on being full-time again in the spring. If I do that -- maybe taking it slow in the fall would be a better idea. 

Either way, I'm filling up this summer with fun family times, and I'm really excited about having some freedom. 

2 comments:

Kris said...

The great thing about online courses is not having to commute to/be in a physical classroom at a certain time. If, however, you've never taken an online course know that while you're the ideal student (proactive, organized, self-motivated, tech savvy, etc.), it really does take a lot of time, often much more than if you took the course face-to-face.

Whatever you decide, enjoy your summer!

The Fearless Freak said...

I say you are killing yourself this semester and you deserve a break, if you can swing it in the fall.

Personally, I don't really like online classes because I feel like I'm not really "getting my money's worth" since I've never been in a class where I learned anything that didn't come out of the book. I much prefer lectures.