Oh, probably not forever. School is too much fun. Really. So, here’s where I stand at the semi-end of the little back-to-college adventure I began a few years ago. I have been taking classes in the Washtenaw Community College Internet Professional Program. WCC is not some mickey mouse continuation of high school and I can’t speak for all of the programs over there but the INP program is RIGOROUS! We are trained in standards-based web coding, graphic design, user experience, and we get an introduction to project management. There is a *lot* of homework: coding, reading, writing, and critical thinking. Deadlines are stringently enforced and hanging around on Facesuck* during class is not tolerated. Nor is falling asleep and having your face bang down onto your keyboard. No, I didn’t do that, but the troubled young man sitting next to me in an entry-level class did.

I have been working my way through several certificates in the program. I earned the basic Web Technology certificate a couple years ago. I have been one class away from two advanced certificates, Web Graphic Design and Web Application Developer, for quite some time now.

I’m not sure I’ll ever finish the advanced graphic design certificate. I love art and graphic design and I think I rather have an eye for it. I’ve created some pretty darn cool designs (er, not this site…). But I don’t have any basic art training and I work *very* hard at it. I can’t just sit down and noodle something out in 15 minutes.

The class I audited this semester (php and Ruby) would’ve allowed me to complete the application developer certificate. So, why did I audit? Because, as a direct result of the INP program, I suddenly found myself actually throwing myself into the application process for a *real* job and I knew that with a real job and the family responsibilities of an old bag like me, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the assignments. And since the entire class was structured so that people would work with partners, I couldn’t let my partner down. I did get the job (as y’all know, like “shaddup already KW”) and I was right that I would need every single off-time second to deal with the house and kids and commander, et al. I love it but it is a juggling act.

Or maybe it was more that I knew I couldn’t deal with getting less than an A. Yes, folks, this old bag holds a 4.0 average in the rigorous INP program at WCC. I’m saying this not to brag, exactly. I worked my you-know-what off for those grades. It’s just that life has changed so much since I was an awkward, unpopular, junior high kid in a small, northern city who did her best to get lower grades in a rather desperate attempt to fit in with the in crowd. Not. Oh, it wasn’t that bad. I had band friends and a boyfriend that my parents weren’t crazy about (rightly so) and, by the time I was about a high school junior, I was aiming for As again. And got them. And continued to get them in college, that is, when I wasn’t totally pissed off at some incompetent professor. I had exactly two of those and they did screw with my grade point average but you won’t get anything more out of me about that in this post. Er, current college students: DO NOT EMULATE ME!!!! Figger out a way to get *around* that stoopid prof.

What’s next? Well, I may audit a web database class I’ve already taken because they’re changing the technology and it would be worth my while to learn it. Someday, I may re-take the class that ended tonight for credit. An official technical writing class would give me some handy tools to enhance a skill I have been using forever. And how about a beading class just for fun? Yeah! G’night!

*I don’t really have anything against Facebook but I won’t get on there. I’m sure my kids don’t want me on there and I don’t wanna be there. Er, where did the flinging trouts come from? ’cause I have been known to fling muskellunges. Many years before Face you-know-what.

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