Did you enjoy school?

I'm back in Pittsburgh after five days in San Antonio, visiting Dan and Holly in their new and lovely home. Everything is indeed bigger in Texas- 12 foot ceilings! I somehow managed to be in San Antonio for five days of clouds, rain, and cool temperatures. We stuffed a lot into those five days- the River Walk, a visit to Wayside Chapel, visits to several really delicious restaurants and finally, a fabulous last-minute drive through San Antonio to find a gas station and fill up the rental car. 

I also got to see a very interesting airport- Detroit- Terminal A has 78 gates and it is one looooooong building with a tram. There is a terminal B- much shorter, and a psychedelic tunnel that connects the two terminals. Truly- it has swirling, changing colors and patterns with odd music. My final assessment of the airport is.....thank goodness for moving walkways!

And now for today's writing.

Did you enjoy school?

Do you remember how much you wanted summer vacation to start? That feeling used to start right around Labor Day, which is when I used to go back to school (elementary, junior, senior high). I don’t remember particularly liking or disliking school as a kid, other than feeling out of place and therefore not always comfortable there. I didn’t have many friends in elementary school, and was picked on a lot once I began wearing glasses. When I try to remember elementary school, the bullying and feeling like an outsider is what I remember most.

When I was to start sixth grade, my parents transferred me from the public school to a private school for girls. I made my first real friends there and built some confidence in my abilities. I did well in my classes and was involved in drama and choir. I liked studying the sciences but don’t recall anything else in particular as a favorite subject. Although the English elective "TV and You" in 11th grade was definitely fun, if a bit empty of academic worth.

College was a weird time for me. I went from an all-girls school with 135 people in my class to a university of 4000 mostly male students (the school had only been co-ed for 7 years). EVERYONE there had been in the top ten percent in their high schools, and so for 90% of us it was a shock to find ourselves ranked below (sometimes FAR below) where we had been in high school. Lehigh University was also insanely competitive, far far more than high school. I floundered a bit before finding my footing. Despite my love for the sciences, I found myself competing against the extremely intense people who would spend two years at Lehigh and then 4 years at Hahnemann Medical School. I had to choose between studying something I loved or studying something at which I could succeed, hence my BA in English Literature. What I really wanted was to become a nurse, but I had to graduate from college first, and by the time I chose my major, I had become another competitive Lehigh student.

From Lehigh I went to nursing school and there my love for school flourished and it became more about the learning than the competition. I loved what I was studying and practicing and therefore loved the entire pursuit. Ever since then I have been an ardent student. Sometimes I’ve been an official student, earning a post-bacc Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Nursing Science, and a post- Master’s certificate in Healthcare Informatics. Other times I have taught myself. When I am embarking upon a new endeavor I often throw myself into a study of that area- for example, when I got a job with a revenue cycle consulting company, I read and learned a great deal about the revenue cycle of a hospital, even though that wasn’t my area of concentration.

After I completed my last degree, everyone asked me if I would go on for my doctorate. The answer to that is no, no, no. I've reached a place in my life where I am no longer interested in deadlines, bulletin board postings, APA formatting, and reading endless articles written by the same 10 people. I like school but I am done with school.

The answer to the question is, yes, I enjoyed school. But what I enjoy even more is learning. Our digital age presents a lot of free opportunities to learn a variety of subjects- iTunes U, Coursera, Lynda.com (not free but you get a lot of choices for a yearly fee). Even Audible.com now sells The Great Courses, which are university lectures on history, art, science, philosophy and more. I wrote about some of these opportunities last year in an earlier blog.