...and so it begins

Today is the day!  By that I mean the first day of the Spring Semester.  I think I kind of freaked out a little yesterday about this.  I was stressed already and it had not even begun yet.  Based on last semester, this is going to be a very stressful 4 months.  I am really hoping that I learned a lot about my organizational skills last semester and be able to put to use what I learned this time.


Every class I have in this program is with the same 23 other people.  This is kind of nice because we are all in it together, going through the same things together and can lean on each other.  I really like that.  Honestly, I thought I was going to hate it.  The thing about this semester is that I have one class through Normandale Community College that the rest of my cohort is not in, and they all have a class that I am not in.  I hope this doesn't separate us too much.  I don't think it will because their class is mostly on-line.  I have to take this other class because I do not have all of the graduation requirements finished for MSU.  When I came to Normandale, I went to my adviser and said that I wanted to get into MSU's off-campus elementary ed program and he gave me the classes I needed.  He did not, however, ever tell me that I would need to finish an AA or take additional classes in Mankato, MN (about an hour and a half away) in order to graduate from MSU.  He is going to have everyone apply for graduation this upcoming semester and it is a really good thing I looked into it early because had I waited, it would have been really hard to take this extra class during a semester that I do not get to skip a class.  (By the way, I get to skip that class because I already took it at NIU.)  Anyway, what that means is that I will be graduating with my AA degree from Normandale in May and then will be finished at MSU with my Bachelor's and Teaching License next May.  For those that know me well and know my history, you must know how hard I've worked and how excited I am to finally be graduating!  It will definitely help boost my self-confidence to finally get that accomplished.  


I have a pretty busy schedule this semester but am lucky enough to have Fridays off!  That will be really nice to have one day completely off.  Also, Mondays and Wednesdays are night classes, so I have those days mostly off as well.  I have to be honest, when I was looking at which class to take at Normandale to finish my AA, part of the reason that I picked this one was because it was a Monday night class and Monday night classes during the Spring Semester get a lot of days off!  I also picked it because I feel pretty familiar with the topic - Personal Finance.  Mike and I are very conscious of our financials and take very good care of them, so I think that I will be able to understand most, if not all, of the content very well.  


The other classes I have are all methods classes for teaching at the elementary level: Reading/Language Arts, Science/Health, Social Studies and Math.  It should be pretty basic and will hopefully teach me a lot.  It's nice to be taking the classes that will actually be useful to me as a teacher.  I will also have a 4 week practicum later in the semester.  The grade level has not yet been assigned.  Finally, we have 2 day-long Classroom Management workshops to attend during the semester as well.  All of that equals my 19-credit hour semester!  Off I go!