College (Gaaah!)

After years and years of threatening to do it, it's finally getting done.

I am now.

Officially.

Attending University. (a little piece of me died just now.)

I'm a Quick Entry Student in the School of Community Health at Portland State University, dutifully plodding towards a bachelors' degree. My first class was today, Urban and Community Health, PH 543, populated mainly with grad students. I am one of maybe three people not currently seeking a graduate degree in a class of 14.

I'm clearly out of my element as far as credentials, but the class is designed rather nicely, has an engaging group at the table, all seem rather accepting of me (no one's laughed me out of the room. Yet). Everyone appreciatively ooh'd and aah'd when I cited my EMT experience and my various jobs in the field.

The assignments are going to be rather fun: tracking health issues in the media for a given urban community, constructing a public health profile of a Portland neighborhood, and writing a half dozen essays.

We meet in a beautiful sky-washed room on the fourth floor of the new Urban Studies Center, overlooking the streetcar and the skybridges to the other buildings. It's the glass-and-brick version of an ivory tower, high above the dross. Privilege incarnate.

best,

paulmonster-undergrad