Semester #4 Finally in the Books

I have completed 4 full semesters of college at Fairmont State University. During those 4 semesters I have also taken some CLEP exams( took 2 yesterday, passed!!), and also took 1 summer school class that is already complete (8-5, Monday thru Friday, A) which brings my total credit hrs to 96 in 2 years. I also made the President's list again this semester, that is to say President's list 4 times (4.0) and 96 of 128 hours completed and 18 hrs scheduled for the fall semester 2012. Now I can relax a little this summer or at least til 20Aug2012 when school starts again. Hope everyone has a great summer and I'll see you this fall. Look for some summer time pontificating about epistemology and BIV theories to be blogged about, hope to engage some of my followers in this quest for understanding about; How we come to know all we know?????

Time Flies or "As the Clock Ticks"

"As the Clock Ticks" could be a great soap opera title. Time flies when you are having fun, or even faster when you are very busy. This has been a very busy semester filled with lots of projects and writing assignments. Still this is no excuse for not writing at least one or two posts, but alas I have not done so, so here I am catching up. Many things have happened in the past semester that cause you to think about all that you are doing and what you have left to do. I have finished 87 hours, just finished 3 more hrs for a total of 90 hrs completed and I am preparing for taking and completing 6 hrs more on Thursday, to end this semester with a total 30 hrs and bringing the grand total to 96 hrs in just 4 semesters of study and no Bs. The 24 hrs a semester average has been challenging, but well worth the effort I have put into making this life change at my age. I think there are still some people that do not understand why I wanted to this, stating that I could be making a lot more money doing what I have done my whole life, "Construction." And for the most part those people would be 100% correct I could be making more money, and make no mistake about it I love to operate equipment always have and likely always will, but I have also been a lifelong learner (thanks to some great teachers) and now it is time for me to earn my degree. I like many other non-traditional students have a different point of view to education and the classes we take, and motivation to get done and start the next phase of life, it may be the ticking clock we hear. We may also find ourselves a little jealous of our youthful peers, maybe secretly wishing somehow we could be that age again, but retain all the wisdom and experience we have gained through the years. It may be true "youth is wasted on the young," I know many times I have thought "I wish I had known that when I was younger," but that's enough about that. I read a couple great books over the semester that had some great nuggets of knowledge tucked inside them, Post War by Tony Judt and Coal by Barbara Freese. Both of these books were supplemental resources for classes, and both were great resources and surprisingly good reads. I may have to read Post War many times to fully retain all the nuggets it contained. The Author offered a point of view that provided a closer look at why things happened the way they did and why the decisions made caused the outcomes they did. Some of the concepts could be challenged on their warrants, but then so could the warrants you would use in your challenge. Coal was a great look into the history of coal as researched by an Assistant District Attorney in Michigan trying to learn more about "Clean Air Laws." She explored the topic from several different points of view and you would have never known that she was researching to gain a perspective on clean air legislation had I not just told you. Read both of these books and your understanding of the history about these topics will be changed. The other great topic of the semester came from an article I ran into looking at some information regarding my theories of personality class, that dealt with epistemology (check earlier posts). This coupled with meta-cognition has been a source of many hours of pondering and thesis building fodder. well maybe not thesis building more like question building which led to even more questions and now it seems I have far more questions than answers. I'll close with 2,    1- what do you think about when you are thinking about thinking? (meta-cognition)  and 2- how is it you came to believe the things you believe and what happens when those things you believed to be true change? Please respond with your thoughts I would really like to discuss these topics more.