My Bachelor's Degree

A most embarassing fact about me: I started college in 1998. I have been a full time student most of the time since then, taking only a few semester's off. I am still technically working on my Bacchelor's Degree.
I majored in Elementary Education (for a brief time dual majored with Special Ed) at Utah State University for 3 year, then for 2 1/2 years at BYU. I felt inspired to get my Associate of Nursing, Registered Nurse when Brent and I decided to get married in 2005, and finished that degree at the end of 2007.
I like school, and don't regret any of my educational opportunities and experiences. I love nursing much more than I expected I would, and I find it a rewarding career, spiritually, relationally and financially. I work at a high school/ residential treatment center, and have many opportunities for teaching and mentoring through my work.

Still, since my days at USU, I have always been interested in national educational policies, and educational philosophies-- specifically figuring out and applying educational ideas that actually work. With this interest in mind, and inspired by my hero in the educational community and mentor at BYU, Buddy Richards, I am considering a new graduate program through BYU in Educational Reasearch, Measurement and Evaluation. You can't apply to a graduate program unless you have a Bachelor's Degree.

After evaluating a number of options, I felt that the BYU Bachelor of General Studies Program would provide the flexibility I needed to complete my Bachelor's degree with a Psychology Emphasis. That is what I'm working on now. I finished my first couple of classes in a couple of months. But, then I dove into statistics. OUCH!! I knew that statistics online would be hard, but I still got bogged down in some issues, not the least of which was the professor's refusal to give any feedback or help me to understand what I did wrong on the second exam....

Anyway, I am now, after about 3 months, finally about to take the final exam and finish the course. I only have 4 more classes after this to graduate. I had planned on April, but I'm now aiming for August.

I don't know exactly what is next for me in my education after I finish this degree. I feel that I'll have a lot of options. I definitely see a lot of potential with my current employer, provided Brent's career options after graduation keep us in Utah. They have been more than good to me, and I feel like I can make a difference there.

Of course, we don't know how starting our family will impact our future. Certainly our goal is for us to be the full time parents of our children. Due to Brent's encouragement, I'm no longer convinced that that will mean that one of us doesn't make outside of the home contributions to the world, but certainly it will mean that our family will be our first priority and that we will raise our kids-- not daycare or someone else.*

So, hopefully in August, you will all be seeing graduation pictures for me and for Brent! Yipeee!!!!

* This is not meant to offend anyone, but to express our own commitment to a personal value-- what it means to us to be parents. To us it is a complete commitment, and obligation that cannot be passed on to anyone else.