I'm finding myself in a situation that is rather uncomfortable. I have the desire to continue my education, but I seem to be a round peg trying to fit into a square hole. I am the adult with years of experience looking for the right Master's degree program.
Currently I have over 20+ years of experiences in the realm of arts administration. I signed up for a qualifying course in an arts administration program, and I was bored. I felt like it was a waste of time and money, and my fellow students kept commenting, "Boy, you really know what you are talking about!"
The course was about perspectives on art. What is art? We had to find good examples such as articles for various views on art and comment about our findings. I do this type of work almost everyday, and have been doing this frequency for about 6 years. If you follow me on Twitter, you know what I mean. I post ARTicles for my fellow colleagues to read and learn from and to start discussions on these types of topics.
The point to this rambling is, there seems to be no educational options for the adult learner who already has experience. If I want the "title," then I either have to waste the time and money or in some cases pay for credits that represent my experience. Yes, there are a few schools that will evaluate your experiences and allow you to pay a certain amount for a certain number of credits. Pay for my experiences which I already paid for through hard work? Seems ridiculous to me!
I have seen a few build your own degrees, which are attractive to me, yet, they are few and far between and many are not online, and some are not offering Masters degrees.
So, what am I to do? I fell upon a few articles for "creating your own private degree." There is a small movement where people design their own "degrees" and find the books, online courses, and continuing education classes to form their own personal degree. Some of these posts even suggest that learning in this fashion could be the wave of the future. After all, when you think about it, the degrees and stamp of approval from institutions are simply creations of people. Couldn't I read the same books and write my own papers and get peer reviewed approval? In this world of social media sharing, many of us are doing this to some extent.
Don't get me wrong, I view education as extremely important and something to value. However, who is to say you are an expert simply based on a program of someone else's creation? Couldn't someone create their own path of learning and becoming equally expert? There are many people in this world that do not have a college education, but they have learned what they needed to know and took this type of education into the real world for real life experiences. Some have built empires, and some have written books. Society values this type of entrepreneurial spirit too!
It has been a constant roller coaster thinking about getting a Master's degree. I do not fit neatly into the box that the majority of educational institutions have designed. I guess I will keep looking for a program that values my experience and allows me to design my own future. If you have any suggestions, please do reply and let me know. And, if the right program is not out there, perhaps designing my own private degree is the way to go.
Thoughts?
-Shoshana
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