so one of my long term goals has been for quite some time to spend time in the uk — pick up and move there. of course part of that means getting a job, since i am not independently wealthy, and getting a job means getting a visa. they’ve redone their visa program and now i haven’t got enough points, due to my previously not-very-lamentable lack of a baccalaureate.
pity they don’t give you credit for excellent spelling skills or ability to type fast, because those i’ve got in spades.
enter: sabrina going back to school, part IV. (uic, uic, oakton, truman; now harold washington! i am working on a sarah palin-style geographically-disparate degree, apparently.)
so today, filling out the tiresome transcript requests, even for pointless crap that either will not transfer or won’t be anything useful (car class!) and now off to finaid (i do really like having worked for a student financial aid company in the past, it comes in handy from time to time) to learn about how i, once more, as per tradition, blew the deadlines for the fafsa — something that really set the tone for my college career at the outset, as the reason i dropped out of school to begin with was because i ran out of money because i had no financial aid, because i didn’t fill out the fafsa senior year in high school. i know i am probably not eligible for much if anything now, but hey, if i am, i’m damned well going to find out what it is, because from what i can tell, the price of tuition got on board a rocket ship once i left school and has steadfastly climbed straight into the stratosphere.
i am currently thinking about a couple of options. night classes at HWC to finish out my sophomore year slash core requirements, to start. i have sophomore standing at UIC, having completed something like 32 credit hours. (pity i never could be arsed to have gone to my theatre class, a fine arts credit would come in handy now.) my oakton and truman coursework ought to be worth a big fat zero, being as how it was a non-credit algebra class for those of us who forgot everything, an intro-to-computers class in which i learned exactly one useful thing (the little style paintbrush in MS Office), and of course car class which was useful but not exactly pursuant to a degree in anything people consider worth having. unfortunately most of the stuff i have left to do in the core is stuff i’ve been avoiding because i don’t want to do it: math (have never done well at any sort of math other than geometry, and i simply don’t get it at all, to the point where i have wondered from time to time if i have some sort of learning disability, but at any rate, i hate hate hate it because it frustrates me and makes me angry, and the only reason geometry got a pass was because of all those lovely proofs which were so simple because they just made logical sense, step one then step two, easy peasy cheezy squeezy) and lab science (hate chemistry, hate hate hate it with a blinding passion, mostly because it involves math).
once i’ve got the core curriculum completed, the most economical option seems to be to go back to the U of I system and do an online degree. (they don’t offer any core courses online, which is very irritating but i suppose understandable.) they offer online degree programs, via UIS, in liberal sciences and IT. i don’t know which one i would want to pursue, but i would probably default to liberal sciences because it should involve less math and, as discussed, we hateses math like a two-year-old hates being told no (and with much the same screaming and tears). or i’ve looked briefly at other online programs. the florida tech online offers a BA in IT program (as well as a BS, but, math), but i’m a little frightened off by their tuition (about $11k/yr). i am skeptical of the university of phoenix simply because i am skeptical of anyone who advertises that much (but also because they make it very difficult to find out their tuition and fees, which is deeply annoying).
but i suppose i haven’t really got to worry about where to finish up at just yet. first i have to survive chemistry. (groan)
