school stuff

so, i met with an admissions counselor yesterday at marylhurst university which is local to portland. i sent them my unofficial transcripts from palomar in the morning and when i came in for my appointment, they had everything mapped out for me.

there are SO MANY good things that came out of this meeting:

1. i found that they are VERY flexible with what they will accept - for example: part of my plan is take a music business program/certificate track. there is no such thing as that around here in portland. the 3 i'm narrowing it down to are in LA, san francisco and minneapolis. they will take the units i earn in those courses and apply them toward my degree. they may even take an internship that i do through another program (internships are one of their senior requirements) depending on how it's set up.
2. they are super big on the "make your own track" kind of thing. they're specifically for people who already know what they want out of their education and want the flexibility to attain it in whatever way possible.
3. they have a non-profit masters degree track - right up my alley
4. they have very small classes and they meet once a week in a 3-4 hour block instead of 3 times a week for 1 hour. they do this because they have very few full-time faculty - all of their teachers actually work in the field they're teaching in and give up a day a week to teach.
5. they're not really the kind of school where people come to hang out for 4 years after high school. it seems like all the students know exactly what they want and are extremely focused and are eager to get everything they can out of the education they're getting rather than just getting a piece of paper because it's what you do after high school. the admissions dude said that their average student is in their 30s, that they do have students just out of high school, but they're super focused and driven.

and, BEST OF ALL

6. they are accepting enough of my credit from palomar, that i took upwards of 10 years ago, that i only have 6 months worth of classes at the community college before i can start upper level courses there.
the guy i met with said that i could easily be in a masters program in 2 years once i go back to school full time. my jaw literally dropped when he told me that. and the classes i have to take before upper level courses? 2 art classes, 2 applied sciences classes (not labs, but stuff like environmental studies) 1 writing class (scary because they are a writing intensive university, we all know how good i am at that one *rolleyes*) and a listening class.

all this, and more, makes me want to start back SO BAD right now. i'm almost thinking of not taking night classes, but getting a 2nd job instead so i can get out of this mortgage crap even faster.