Regis Adviser
I had a meeting with my adviser today to talk about some new classes that are offered. I went in thinking that I was going to have to change my entire degree plan, which would have really sucked. They changed my degree plan (and the supporting courses) shortly after I started, but I have a 7 year contract with them that they can’t change. I started back in Spring of 2005, which gives me until Spring of 2012 to get things done. I’m not going to take anywhere near that long to get done. I plan on graduating sometime around Fall of 2008 or Spring of 2009 depending on how things work out. I hope it doesn’t take much longer than that….
The reason for the change was two new certificate programs that they added: Enterprise and Web Application Engineering, and Information Systems Security. I already had on my slate two of the four classes for the Information Systems Security, so it was just a matter of adding two more classes to my list. I had already taken one of the four classes for the Enterprise and Web Application Engineering certificate, and the other three intrigue me, so I decided to add three more classes to my workload.
To make room for these five classes, I removed from my list the computer networking (four of them) classes that I had planned on taking, so that left me with one extra class to take. While talking to my adviser, I discovered that one of my previous classes (the first one I took, actually) qualified for one of my requirements on my degree. I did not know this. This means that I got to remove Government Role In Society from my list of classes to take.
All-in-all, I’m going to end up taking the same number of courses. Yay! The one oddity about this all, is that if I want my certificates, I have to take two more classes than is necessary to graduate with my bachelor’s degree. I think they’ll be worth it in the end. It’ll look good on the resume to have three certificates (E-Security, Information Systems Security, and Enterprise and Web Application Engineering.) Sure, they don’t mean that I’m certified in anything, and my adviser said several times that they are not “academic certificates.” I still think it’s good resume padding for the future.
I also talked to her about what it would take to be a professor at a college/university. She said that it would take at least a Masters, and most places are now requiring a Doctorate. I kind of expected that. She also said that the rules and requirements vary from state-to-state, and that they seem to be constantly changing. Since it’s going to be a while before I can even qualify to teach, I figure I’ll get the details later.
She did tell me that there are several Regis graduates that are teaching at Regis. That gave me hope because some universities have a “educational incest” policy. This means that if you graduate from a place with a degree, then you can’t also teach there. I can kind of see the logic in that. It keeps the same old ideas from being recycled. It allows for fresh knowledge, fresh perspectives, and fresh ideas to come into the school. I think I would like to teach at Regis. It’s full of working adults, and they seem to be more driven to excel in their fields. I wouldn’t be teaching people that have no drive or desire to be in class. I think that would frustrate me more than anything.
It’s a decent road ahead of me, but by my current count, I have finished 27 classes, am currently in 2 classes, and I have 13 more to go. Two of my classes are core classes, and the rest after that are all computer classes. I’m almost done with the grunt work, and I can get on with the fun stuff!
