4.19.2011

“Are You Almost Finished With Grad School?”

I haven’t posted in a while, mainly because I have been entirely consumed with papers, research, reading assignments and tests for school, in addition to my regular list of work-related duties and responsibilities.

During the times when I’m slammed with school work (and other people tend to become aware of it), I’m invariably asked a question like, “Are you almost finished with school?” or “When do you finish? Next year? Two years?”

Sadly, the short answer to that question is, “No.” From Wikipedia:
“The M.Div. is a significantly more extensive program than most master’s degrees. In the United States the degree usually consists on average of 90 semester hours, as opposed to the usual 36 or 48.”
At my particular school, the M.Div. program is “only” 84 hours, which means that full-time students traditionally finish the program in 4 years. It’s going to take me somewhat longer than that since I am a part-time student who lives over 300 miles from campus and am trying to balance graduate school with full-time ministry. Considering that and the fact that I just started the program last spring, I have a long way to go.

All of that might sound somewhat discouraging (and at times it can be), but for the most part it’s not too bad: it might be cliché, but I’m learning a lot from the journey of balancing grad school and ministry, and am currently focusing more on that than the destination of receiving a diploma.

But, in case you were wondering, no, I’m not almost finished with grad school. :)

5 comments:

Jared Dockery 4/20/11, 9:05 AM  

I remember well a certain church lady (who shall remain anonymous on this blog, but who you should have no trouble guessing, given her tendency to make fudge for us at Christmas time) who couldn't understand why it took me so long to write my master's thesis, because she thought a thesis was a document of a couple of pages of length, explaining what the writer intended to do with his or her life.

Justin and Heather Bland 4/20/11, 11:09 AM  

"You dont sing to get to the end of the song"



... hang in there, man. I am excited about your journey!

Luke Dockery 4/21/11, 3:36 PM  

Jared,

That's funny; I didn't know that.

Luke Dockery 4/21/11, 3:37 PM  

Justin,

That's true…unless the song is really bad I guess, in which case you're desperately trying to get to the end!

Justin and Heather Bland 4/24/11, 7:32 PM  

Ha! Never thought of it like that... I guess I always figured I would choose to sing the song I like. But sometimes you get those stupid songs stuck in your head...

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