Six Transcripts?

OK, it's official, I have applied to grad school, and I am on my way to obtaining my Master's Degree! Filling out the application online was kind of surreal as I thought back to age sixteen, applying for college by filling out a paper application. Did I use a typewriter or a pen? I really don't remember. But I had to dig through files and rack my brain to remember where and when I went to school. Finally I had a stack of six transcripts! Six! I actually went to six different colleges and I don't even have a Master's Degree!

I think of myself as a graduate of the great University of California, Berkeley but somehow along the way to getting a teaching credential I went to five other schools. Let's see, I started at the University of Oregon. That didn't last long. I took a quarter off to be a ski bum, and soon I was settled in to Be-zerkley where I actually graduated on time despite that quarter off. In order to accomplish that, I took 8 units of German at UCI one summer when I lived back with my parents. So that's three transcripts up to the good old B.A.

Then there was the teaching credential. Crazy me, single mother of four kids, living in Hana, Maui. Chaminade University in Honolulu had just begun a satellite program on Maui for a teaching credential. Sign me up! Well, there were these lower division requirements that I needed to take. So another summer at Maui Community College to get those out of the way. OK, teaching credential accomplished, gainful employment found, but three years later it is TIME to get off the rock! Off we go to California where a year later I have a job. Hooray! Lucky for me the Hawaii credential is accepted by California. Have to "clear" that credential within five years to stay gainfully employed, but that means nine more units. University of San Diego offers a satellite program in Orange County. Transcript number six.

A lot of blood, sweat and tears is contained in those six pieces of paper. To think that I was all of sixteen years old when I started that journey. And now I can actually get my Masters' Degree without ever setting foot on a college campus. The whole thing will be online. Amazing. Summer of 2010 and I'll be done! Wish me luck...