Wow, it's February. I feel like the time has just flown. It's hard to believe I was at home only a month ago. It seems like it's been so much longer.
Now that I'm back in the swing of things at school, it's time to start thinking about what I want to do next year. I hate that I have to start figuring things out so soon! It's funny, though, because as I started to look into Master's in Teaching/Instruction programs in Minnesota, I'm finding I've already missed the deadline! The deadline for the U of M's Master of Education/Initial Licensure Program was December 15th. Plus, if I want to get into that Master's program, I would have to take about a year (at least) of pre-requisites like mathematics for the elementary teacher, teaching physical education, teaching music, history, etc. etc. So even if I do apply for the program next December, what am I going to do until then? And when am I going to take those classes?
I'm finding that as much as I hate planning that far in advance, it's something I'm going to have to start doing or I'm going to waste time.
Since I missed the deadline for the U, I started looking into other Master of Education/Initial Licensure programs around the state. I found one that seems really promising--Hamline University, which is, interesting enough, where I wanted to go for my undergraduate degree before I visited Ripon! I requested information from the College of Education and I have been in contact a lady from the Office of Graduate Admissions. She said, "On average, it takes students around 2 years to complete the license. The length of time and cost of for the program varies from student to student and will depend on the particular license that you are seeking, how your academic background lines up with the content area requirements (or how many content area courses would be waived based on past coursework and how many would be remaining to complete during the program) and your preferred pace." The best part about the program is that they accept applications on a rolling basis, so she said as long as I apply by June, I should be fine to begin in the fall! I mentioned the idea of getting a Master’s in Instruction to my dad, and he told me about another program that only takes a year, at St. Mary’s University in Winona. I’m not sure if I like the campus or exactly how everything works with that program either. Applying for grad school (and choosing one!) from Spain is a pain…
But I think I'm also going to apply for another year in Spain, just to keep all my options open. I'm not sure, though, where I want to apply. I've been thinking long and hard about this decision and I've listed the pros and cons to each decision and I still don't know. The hardest part is that everything is a gamble. If I stay here in Madrid, I will be in the same school, with the same students and the same teachers, and same terrible administration. But I will also have my host family from when I studied abroad, and my wonderful flatmate and flat in the center of the city. I like my teachers I work with and I love my third-graders, who I would have next year again as fourth-graders. But I don’t like the extra classes we are giving now during our preparation hour and the fourth-grade classes are very badly behaved…the administration is, well, Spanish…and the Spanish way of doing things is pretty inefficient sometimes…but I don’t know. I know that I could have it a lot worse…
What to do???
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