I thought I’d check back in on the quest to find a “higher”  higher education and let you know about some of the things that I’ve been thinking about over the past year. Yes, I’ve been doing this for a year now. Yes, I’m tired of it already. No, this leg of the journey can’t end fast enough. Yes, I’m crazy enough to consider another five years of school after this. But more on that later.

The topic for today?

How does where you choose to learn affects what you gain or lose?

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Today’s words from the digital man cave are a dip back into the goodie bag to see what the world of higher education has been bringing to the table. It has been 10 weeks since the last update of this nature, and another quarter has come and gone. Papers have been completed, tests have been taken, projects have been completed, student satisfaction surveys have been filled out, and grades have been entered.

By all accounts it has been an interesting ride so far, and I’ve learned something that I’d like to share.

There is a disturbing number of liars and sadists working at institutions of higher education. And the liars are the worst because they lie about being sadists.

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Todays words from the digital man cave are a dip back in time to a post style that hasn’t been seen in over a month. Today we’re talking education again!

In the weeks since the end of last term and the beginning of this one I’ve run into a few situations that may be just what the doctor ordered/really bad news. I got a late start this quarter in terms of my classes. I was lazy and misread some information, an error that costs me several points (too many in fact)  and will quite possibly jeopardize my entire plan. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I was right about consequences being enforced and the proper use of punishment. Punishment can be just as useful a motivator as reward, it is just more difficult to use successfully.

I’ve also gotten a bit of a reminder about what types of courses do not go well together. A long time ago I learned that it was better for me to not pair math and science together in one term. You’d think it’d make each easier by association, but the similarity often causes confusion and mistaken identity in my memory. Apparently another bad choice for me is statistics and history together, though they are my to least favorite subjects so that is probably the reason why they don’t go well together for me.

But this brings me to my 1st main point: choice. If you’re going to pursue a graduate education, make sure you have choices in what you do and how you do it. Nothing can kill your desire quite like a lack of freedom.

Todays words from the digital man cave are about education. And a change in format. I’ve been doing this for 12 weeks now and it’s been a  good thing. I started this Sunday regular series for a few reasons. 1) I really wanted to stick to a set post schedule and I needed something consistent to nail that down. 2) I wanted to chronicle my adventures and misadventures in going back to school. 3) I needed a regular post topic to free up time and mindspace to work on other projects.

Well now that the first quarter is all done, I’m going to switch it up a little bit and not post about the educational world every week. The experiment was successful and I’ve got the schedule down. I’ll just post on it as things come up, and the week counter will still be kept for the frame of reference on how far along things have progressed.

I’m doing this so I can provide a little bit more varied content here at the digital man cave. Right now I’m only giving you the meat and potatoes once a week. I need the option to hit you with the double whammy on the regular. Other projects will continue as they have been… something about not being in an office right now makes it much easier to think and create. Go figure. You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with education and what have I learned over the last twelve weeks.

Well first, going back to school is not all it’s cracked up to be. When you’re out of school you kind of miss it. Don’t let the nostalgia fool you. The fact of the matter is, once you get out of school you fill your time with all sorts of other things. When you go back to school those other things don’t necessarily disappear, and change is rarely ever easy.

The second thing that has stuck out to me is that you sometimes want to plan ahead from your planning ahead. You got the feeling like something is about to blow up in your face, listen to it. Things come up. Gotta be able to adapt. Darwin wasn’t stupid. Whether or not you should care what he had to say is something that will probably never be debated here, but in modern life the law of the land is “he who is most adaptable will survive and thrive“.

Stay tuned to the digital man cave as you get more of what I hope you enjoy!

Todays words from the digital man cave are once again, on mastering education. This first session is almost over… This is the end of week 11, and nearly the end of the quarter. And what have I learned over these 11 short weeks? A number of things but this week I relearned a very valuable lesson.

Punishment has its placed in life.

At times, it is a very very useful tool. What I mean is that, it can be a motivator as well as a teacher. I think most people believe in the power of reinforcement as a teacher and motivator but I think punishment has its place too. For example, in the past couple weeks I was unable to turn in an assignment on time. I simply scheduled too many things to happen within the same few hours and it ended up coming to a point where I couldn’t complete my duties within the specified time limits. Well, the consequences of doing something like there have been spelled out since Week 1 Day 1 for me so I expected to receive adequate punishment.

Nothing.

Not a single thing was done about it. So where was my motivation the next time that situation came up? In the crapper, that’s where. And what was the lesson that I learned? I shouldn’t be so intent on following all of the set guidelines if the people in charge weren’t. This is bad. The punishment should have been there to teach me that the choices I make can have unfavorable consequences, and it should have been there to motivate me to not let it happen again.

See, punishment has its place. Especially in education. Then again, maybe I’m just being ungrateful for catching a lucky break…

What do you think?

If you were once in my situation, did not receiving an adequate punishment change the way you interacted with your education? Or were you just grateful to catch a break?

Let me know in the comments and stay tuned for more from the digital man cave!

Todays words from the digital man cave are on the third week of mastering education.

This week I find myself craving feedback and validation with my academic pursuits. I may have mentioned it before but the downside to online education is the lack of a physical classroom. I never thought I would value real-time communication so much, until i chose to go without it. The alluring benefit of online education is that, for the most part, you can learn at your own pace and set your class times. But what if your class times are 6 hours behind everyone elses? Well there goes your chance at grabbing some of the energy of synergy. And with it goes one of your best opportunities to have any sort of dialogue where learning takes place. It’s not like I can invite everyone over to the man cave for a sitdown or anything. I imagine it would be less productive than it sounds.

I think that’s what you have to remember and focus on the most when it comes to online education. The learning is what you make it. If you view your reading and assignments as optional, the potential knowledge to gain will be that much harder to see. If you view the discussion elements as inconsequential, that’s exactly what you’ll find.

Now… I’m not saying that the quality of your online education is entirely up to you. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be any difference in where you got your education, and there shouldn’t be any difference in the cost between schools. But there is. And so you should expect something from your higher learning institution. You should expect to be challenged. And I don’t mean having your patience challenged but being challenged mentally. Finding a tea cozy in a man cave is challenging, but it’s not going to make you grow. Solving a crossword is challenging and you’ll probably learn something in the process. See the difference?

It would be easy to say that you should be certain of the experience you’ll get from your online education BEFORE you start, but I won’t. If I did I’d feel like I was one of those people who talks a good game about something they have zero knowledge of. You can’t know for certain what you’ll get because anyone you talk to will be speaking from a biased position. Admissions officers at ANY school want you to go there. It’s money in the bank. Students who did well there will usually speak well of the school, after all they did well. Students who did not… you get the idea. The only way for you to form a true opinion will be through your own experience.

So what am I saying here? As I sit, typing away in my digital man cave I guess what I’m saying is… take it seriously, but take it with a grain of salt. Act as if every reading, assignment, and discussion has been given with a specific purpose in mind, but don’t delude yourself if the school isn’t putting out enough to match what you’re putting in.

Stay tuned for more words from the digital man cave! Next week we talk about what it’s like to have a class end, and what it’s like juggling life and final projects.