An academic odyssey

My newfound photography obsession, well-documented here, has not abated in the past six months or so since it first manifested itself. If anything, it's gotten worse, culminating in what may very well prove to be one of the smartest or stupidest moves I've ever made.

Other men buy a hot new car (I'm still holding out for my '37 Studebaker) or a hot new girlfriend (I floated the idea, but The Wife nixed it). So, what's left for me to plunge into for a last, desperate grasp at youth before the looming big Four-Oh crushes my will to live?

I'm now a college student.

I have successfully--knock wood--enrolled in nine undergraduate course hours for the fall 2008 semester (that's three classes in English). As I've said before, the fact that I never took any photojournalism courses while earning my degree at A&M has long bothered me. Not bothered me terribly much, but it's been there. But once I started thinking about it, it became a really nagging obsession on my part, prompting me to start selling off my beloved Dr. Demento collection in order to purchase a goodly amount of digital photography equipment. But just having the stuff wasn't enough. I wanted to know how to use it, and reading books on the subject only takes you so far.

So. Texas State has a program in place where staff members can apply for tuition and fees to be covered by the university for 9-12 hours' worth of classes. This discovery was quite exciting to me, I can tell you. But because my department is under-staffed, I can't afford to take any time off. So, full-time student, full-time work. Already this becomes challenging. Little did I know that this was just the start.

Texas State offers a photojournalism course through the School of Journalism. No prerequisites, and it's essentially the same course I didn't take at A&M. That's a good start. No problems there. But I also discover the Department of Art & Design offers a full-blown fine art degree in photography. Oh, my! There are quite a few photo courses here that are quite enticing to me. Only here's the hangup--there are prerequisite classes. Two, in fact--2/D Design and Basic Drawing. Both must be completed before taking any photo courses. Well, I went and met with a counselor, explained my needs and wants, and ironed some things out. I'd apply to Texas State as a transfer student, and since I already had my B.A. from A&M, I'd be a second degree-seeking student (which has its own set of unique rules to play by). I'd get a waiver in which I could enroll in the fine art photography courses concurrently with the prerequisite classes in consecutive semesters. After two semesters, I'd have a pretty solid photographic foundation, at which point I could either decide to pursue that second degree in photography or look into graduate school (MFA in creative writing) if my grades warranted it. Great. Everything was all set.

Except, once I got ahold of the course offerings for the fall, photojournalism wasn't listed. This is Double-Plus-Ungood. I can't stress this enough. Without photojournalism, my plan falls apart--I have to have at least three courses otherwise I don't qualify for the university's tuition/fee program. Ouch. So I contact the professor who normally teaches it, and learn that it may be offered--taught by adjunct faculty--if funding can be found. But it wouldn't be added to the course offerings until long after I need to be registered. Still, because of my journalism background, he suggests an Independent Study. He describes it to me, and it'd definitely be challenging, akin to learning Spanish by being dropped off in Oxaca for a month and having to learn the language or else. But I'd learn an obscene amount of photography in a very short time, which is what I want to take the classes for in the first place. And not having a set class period would very much help with my work schedule. Okay, great. We'll do Independent Study.

So I get all the approvals and signatures. I'm approved. All set. Monday arrives. The first day of online registration, for faculty, staff and student workers. I log in to the system. It won't let me register. I'm a new student, it says. Well, yes. It says I can't register until I've gone through new student orientation. First I've heard of this. I call the Registrar's office. It's a first-day glitch, I'm told. It should clear up tomorrow after the system resets overnight. The next morning, of course, the system still refuses to let me register. Geeze, Louise!

I keep hearing the refrain that the system has me as a "New Student" (true) and that I must go through orientation before I'll be cleared to register (not true, but what can I do?). Waiting until June for a day-long orientation with 18-year-old freshmen isn't an option. There's an online orientation for transfer students, though. In desperation, I take it. What is supposed to take an hour takes me 15 minutes to successfully complete. I've undergone orientation, so the system should let me register now, right? Of course not. Silly of me to think otherwise.

Meanwhile, the Intro to Digital and Photographic Imaging class I need is filling up. There are 18 seats available Monday morning when I begin my futile quest to register. I check now--after just one day of staff and special classification registration--and see that it's down to just 12 openings.

Did I mention my schedule is an academic house of cards? I have three courses, but to make the job and schooling mesh in a workable way, I have to get into specific sections. My schedule won't work at all otherwise. Panic sets in. Quickly.

I pick myself up, gather reams of documentation, emails and other such things and hie me over to the Registrar's office. Whereupon I'm greeted with the refrain that the system thinks I'm a new student and I have to go through orientation in June. Egads. I bury them in paperwork, showing that no, I'm not required to go through orientation, and that even if I were, I'd already completed the online orientation which satisfies the requirement. Duly impressed, they retreat to the computers in the back, and 20 minutes later return to inform me that some file that needed to be created for me hadn't been, which was causing the system hangup. They'd corrected the oversight, and I was now cleared to sign up for my classes.

So, with some trepidation, I retreated to my office, logged in and... successfully landed all three courses as well as the proper sections. Yay!

This fall, I will be taking 2/D Design and Intro to Digital and Photographic Imaging back-to-back on Mondays and Wednesdays, with a photojournalism Independent Study course tacked on for good measure. It's going to be challenging, but even if I fail miserably and humiliate myself and my family for generations to come, I figure I'll pick up at least a little bit of useful knowledge.

I feel an overwhelming urge to watch the "Homer Goes to College" episode of The Simpsons now...

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