Another week, a little smarter

Here it is, May 19, 2017. I am two weeks into my "late in life" college experience and this is my first in a series of thoughts on the process. After retiring from 24 years in the United States Air Force, I decided to go back to school versus back to the work force for a couple of reasons. It would make me smarter, it would help with the future workforce, with my GI Bill it was free!

 So here I am, a married 45 year old man with a wife, two kids, two dogs, two cats and a rather large house payment. No problem! I already have 4 associate degrees, a teaching certification, and have been a manager in my squadron of 300 people. This college stuff will be easy, or will it? 

Fast forward to the present time, and I sit here on my couch doing home work. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but in the two weeks I have been doing this school thing I can almost prove this theory wrong. I am taking two classes during this compressed semester. Astronomy and Creative Writing. I picked those with the thinking that I love science and in my 9,000 hours of flying I have had lots of hours flying over the ocean staring at the clear night sky so it would be cool to take a science course to find out what is really out there. We are just getting started but I have already learned more than I ever thought I would. Space is more than the Starship Enterprise and Captain Kirk! 

As for Creative writing, I chose that due to the fact that "English" was the only course I successfully passed without ever stepping foot into a classroom. I took it as a "CLEP" test and blew it out of the water.  So what do I think so far on this writing course? First impression is, fast pace! There is no time for procrastination. If you snooze you lose. Lots of homework. While I wish we as a class to go over the formats and structure a little more and previous papers done incorrectly a little less, I understand the theory behind it. In the Air Force we called this a "Fire Hose" course and I see in the civilian world its the same. If I could give one complaint, it would be that all the papers are on the subject of social media and various websites in particular. Again, "old dog, new tricks". I am not very social media savvy but this course will get me out of that bubble and on to the net. If I have to find the silver lining, it would be that my kids can no longer make fun of me! So there I am, two weeks in and getting up to speed! Look out all you super smart people, Phil is coming through!