如何坚持, 大流行, and the 《真人国际菠菜》 magazine spurred a degree at 61
乔·布莱特’88 made his way back to his 贝洛伊特 studies last February after 更多的 than 30 years.
Three courses shy of officially finishing his English composition degree, he was married and settled in central Minnesota with a successful career as a marketing director. 回顾, he says the writing and editing skills he acquired at 贝洛伊特 served him well, and the shortfall in college credits had taken nothing away from that.
但伯洛伊特仍在呼唤他.
“I first started looking into finishing my degree in 2009, and I was in contact with Mary Boros-Kazai in the Registrar’s Office about what it would entail,布雷特说。, 61.
Among his options: Take courses elsewhere and request special permission to transfer them, 或者做一些完全激进的事情, 比如休个假, 搬到伯洛伊特, 报名参加必修课程. Instead, he took a new job, which temporarily tabled the idea.
This tug between career and education began his senior year when he landed an internship with a Washington, D.C., publisher that turned into a full-time job. His plan to earn credit for the internship didn’t work out, 但是工作完成了, launching him first as a reporter and later into his current career as a marketing and public relations professional. 他留在了D。.C. for five years instead of returning to 贝洛伊特.
In 2017, after abandoning his 2009 plan to finish his 贝洛伊特 degree, he resurfaced the idea. “我重新联系了玛丽, and she reminded me that I had pestered her about this eight or nine years prior,他笑着说. But the option of relocating to 贝洛伊特 for a semester still seemed daunting and so did the transfer option. 他又暂停了他的计划.
然后到了2020年.
Breiter读了一篇文章 《真人国际菠菜》 in early 2021 that restoked his interests in finishing his 贝洛伊特 degree. The headline read: “Is it really too late to learn new skills?” The upshot of the story was that learning new things at an age when most have mastered what they know puts people in the unfamiliar role of a novice, a mindset where they can learn a great deal.
“I’m like a lot of people who are sort of reassessing their existence during the pandemic. That article got me stirred up a little bit, and I think that’s what really prompted me to dig back into this project,Breiter说.
星星也排成一行. 贝洛伊特’s faculty had adapted and were delivering classes online in spring 2020, and hybrid courses within shorter modules were offered for the 2020-21 academic year. Breiter recognized the moment’s rare possibilities. With these adaptations, he could take his three remaining courses online. He picked up the phone and called 贝洛伊特’s Registrar.
“All of a sudden I had access to the most direct way to approach this and get it done,布雷特说。, 谁说学习新东西, 获得证书, and finishing what he had started all contributed to his desire to complete his degree.
With advice from Professor of English Tamara Ketabgian, he came up with a short list of courses to consider. One was Ketabgian’s lit survey class called Steam Stories, 《数据梦:技术叙事, 知识, 和权力.
He thinks he miscommunicated because suddenly he received an email from 贝洛伊特’s Registrar explaining that he was enrolled in Steam Stories. 类, which covers the steampunk literary genre — science fiction set in 19th-century societies dominated by steam-powered technology — is something Breiter says he’d never heard of before taking the course. 但他很好奇.
“I got an email from the Registrar saying that she had registered me for Tamara’s class and I was like ‘OK, 好吧，那我就选这门课吧.’”他来得正是时候. Spring courses were beginning within days.
After successfully completing that course in May, he started an intensive three-week Summer Blocks writing course with English professor Chris Fink. Up next was another summer course called Art and Activism, 由迈克尔·丹戈教授, 英语助理教授.
到夏末, after 10 straight weeks of juggling college and his full-time job, 布雷特已经吃完了所有的三道菜, 获得了31个学分. His only remaining requirement is to publish a booklet of his writing, which he planned to complete in the coming month.
当他的文凭寄来的时候, Breiter will not only have earned his official designation as a graduate, he’ll also take his place as the fifth person in his family to complete a 贝洛伊特 degree.
