Summer semester

I spent part of the semester break looking into transferring to other programs. It's still frustrating that despite my BA in literature, MFA in creative writing, experience as an adjunct professor in English and graduate teaching assistant, and decades of teaching music, it's still going to take me three full-time years to fulfill the requirements for an Ohio teaching license at Cleveland State University. I was surprised to find out that there are enormous differences in college-based teacher-training programs: one of them won't accept a single credit that was taken more than five years ago, while another won't make post-baccalaureate students take any classes at all in the major subject. I probably should have researched this more thoroughly before deciding to go to Cleveland State, but I naively assumed that state requirements were pretty standardized and so the differences between programs wouldn't be that dramatic. I also didn't have much time to make my decision: I found out in April 2010 that I hadn't been accepted to a Ph.D. program in English, and if I was going to start on my high school teaching license I would have to begin coursework in May.

Ultimately, even though I am rather annoyed at Cleveland State for having rejected my petition to waive their extremely stringent Practicum requirement (15 weeks of mornings, Mon-Fri), the fact is that I am learning a huge amount and am enjoying my classes thoroughly. I was very tempted to switch to the university that wouldn't have required any more English classes, even though it was a long drive from my house. But because of the peculiarities of that schools Education requirements, I would have had to take a freshman-level class in the fall and wouldn't have received my license before December 2012 anyway - and the credits are more than double the cost of CSU credits. So at least for the summer I am going to stick it out here, but I may reconsider later on.