The way things worked out, I chose to study something I loathe--healthcare--at a college I loathe--University of Phoenix. It's just a paycheck, it's just a paycheck, it's just a paycheck...My generous but insensitive rich uncle with no family besides the poor excuse for the one he grew up with said, "So, did you decide where you'll be returning to college, then?"

I hadn't. I was a stay-at-home mom of one, at the time, who worked 30 hours a week at a pizza shop. I was also newly pregnant. I had taken a couple tele-classes at a community college since quitting Kent State, but found myself in no position to sit in class, let alone drive the 50 minutes there and back to school a few times a week.

To avoid another uncomfortable conversation with an uncomfortable relative, I looked into and signed up for the University of Phoenix the same day. I hardly used the internet back then (early 2004), so it wasn't all the university's pop-up ads that attracted me--I'm actually embarrassed of my school because of all its ads--it was its ad in the Utne Reader, ten years prior, that I remembered.

UOP pretty much offers the choice between a bachelor's in healthcare, human resources, criminal justice, or business. Being so bothered by my mom's hypochondria, I chose healthcare.

Let me sum up my school with this story...

My astronomy class ended with a bang (pun intended). It was my 20th class and second B+ out of an assortment of A's and A-'s. I have MUCH to learn when it comes to writing for pleasure, but, compared to my fellow classmates' skills, I write very well academically.

I spoke up to my team (UOP has us write papers both as a team and individually) that the paper's conclusion they were approving was crap--the girl who wrote it couldn't write for shit. She plucked random facts from each section, copied them, and dumped them into a senseless, two-paragraph "conclusion." I quickly but correctly stated that the conclusion had to read like, 'we know what constitutes life, we are looking for life elsewhere but so far without luck. We've looked in our solar system, determined which stars might bear life, and on to discuss the continued search for extraterrestrials.' The girl also repeated so many phrases and words it was uncanny! And I said so.

I've learned to speak professionally and "emotionless" to teammates in matters like this. Meeting exclusively online and only for five weeks gives little chance to understand each others' tone, etc. Instructors give one grade to the entire team, so coming to a consensus is necessary.

The team leader's response was typical UOP: "Don't follow Barb's advice of speaking in first person. We'll get more points taken off from that than from word repetition."

Well, thankfully the instructor did something unusual by asking who wrote what.

~~~

I am currently reading one of the texts for my next class, creative writing. It is The Complete Guide to Writing Fiction and Nonfiction: And Getting it Published by Pat Kubis and Bob Howland. I am amazed by it.

Can I change my major to electives? Nah. I don't want to be a snooty librarian.

I've come to learn that no one is unique. Not even me. So, I'll have a degree in healthcare services, with an underlying passion for the arts. I'd like to use my degree to heighten the health of the lower class so that they may move up Maslow's hierarchy and have what I have: an educated right to complain.