The last time I wrote here I was finishing up the fall semester and here I am finishing spring 2013. I will finish class in 2 weeks and in another week I will take my National Registry exam and earn my certification as an EMT. The following day, I will board a one-way flight to Norway where I will take a class at the American College of Norway, work as an “travel insider” for Stuff2.do and cook delicious meals every day for my hubby.
It has been a crazy semester and I can’t believe I am saying this but my career path is still up in the air. I have a few options that I will have to make a decision about in the next few weeks.
If I had my choice, I would probably not ever “work” at all and volunteer all the time at different places all around the world while people just gave me money for being awesome. I would work on an organic farm for 6 months then bike around South America while learning Spanish for a few months then volunteer at hospitals and schools for a few months and then move to India and shave off all my hair and become a Buddhist monk for a few years. All of my real dreams involve me not actually working but experiencing life.
If I had my choice, the world would be my classroom and experience my teacher. The things I can learn in the classes that I want to take at UWM can all be learned through experience in the wide world.
Why should I pay $10,000 a year for an education on topics I can learn for cheaper in much cooler places. For example, I could travel through all of South East Asia for a whole year with $10k practicing yoga on beautiful beaches learning more about body awareness and cultural diversity and communication and logic and geography and history than I ever could in a lifetime at a university. I was planning on taking a SCUBA class next semester, but why do that when I can get SCUBA certified in Egypt, doing my practice dives in the Red Sea rather than a chlorinated pool in Wisconsin! I thought about taking “Bicycle Maintenance” at UWM, but I learned everything I need to know about maintaining a bike while preparing for and then biking 1000 miles down the beautiful West coast. I find it so hard to ENGAGE in a classroom. I am so much more interested and can really absorb information when it is presented in a natural setting. I sucked at spanish in high school, but after a few weeks in Costa Rica, I could remember every single word I would look up in my English-Spanish dictionary. I think Liberal Arts educations are for people who are too afraid or think they don’t know how to go out into the world to learn.
That’s where I stand as of now and it’s a good thing summer is just a few (long) weeks ahead. I will go on an incredible adventure in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Holland, Germany and Egypt. It is my intention to write about it all but I am not the best at keeping up a blog.
msrmaggie 