Grad school update

I'm given to understand that my constituency is clamoring for content. I thought that an update on my schooling would be in order, since that's where I'm spending my former blogging time and energy.

As you'll no doubt recall, I'm in the midst of a Masters in Military History program through Norwich University. The curriculum consists of six consecutive 11-week seminars, concluding in a 50-page capstone paper. We finished our first seminar, Introduction to Military History, last month, and I can boast of a comfortable 96% in the class, with my final paper on Heraldry and the Middle Ages in Military History. The paper very nearly went sideways, but I lucked out with a late-night epiphany that tied the two themes together. That, and the realization that I had almost all the needed books in my library already.

So we're now two weeks into the second seminar, The Western Way of War, which is a knock-down drag-out look at the thesis of the same name, developed by Victor Davis Hanson. It's been interesting so far because, while I don't buy Hanson's arguments, I find the counter-arguments even less convincing.

But there are mounting frustrations, too. Distance-learning programs have some very strong advantages, but that doesn't really diminish the disadvantages. When I was first applying, the lax admissions standards were very convenient. I didn't have to invest time, money and energy in preparing for the GRE, and my minimally-respectable undergrad GPA of 3.3 was no issue at all. There were less hoops to jump through. What I didn't realize at the time was that the same low admission standards would admit some pretty weak candidates. Which would be of little concern, except that this program is so dependent on classroom discussion. Most of our day-to-day coursework is comprised of message-board discussions with your classmates.

And about half of those classmates are useless. Oh sure, they may be extremely interesting, engaging and clever people in person. I wouldn't know, because they're contributing nothing in the classroom. It's very frustrating. It's like having an interesting conversation with 2-3 people, while 2-3 more look on and interject occasional banalities. Courtesy compels you to respond, but what can you say?

"I thought it was interesting how the author indicated that the Romans were influenced by the Greeks."

That's a loose impression of a recent post, which had me so irritated I had to privately fisk it to another classmate. "Umm, yeah. You were supposed to learn that in 10th-grade social studies."

I like high standards in a degree program. I think that, in this grade-inflation age, high dropout rates are a sign of rigor. In a part-time graduate program, they drop off even quicker because it doesn't take long for people to figure out whether they can fit school into life. We started with 16 people, dropped to 10, and then got a transfer, taking us pack to 11. There are at least two more who I'm hoping to see drop or flunk out soon.

Comments

[Tony]

This is a common problem, even in traditional Masters programs. My MBA program was half professionals who wanted to participate and learn. The other half were recent BA graduates with degrees in kinesiology (or similar) who realized that they had no marketable skills, and figured an MBA was a good idea. If you were dumb enough to major in PE, getting an Masters degree in anything else isn't going to be that much of a help...

[Chris]

This is why I thumb my nose at all of you "scholarly types". What I have learned in the real world by surrounding myself with intellegent people is much more engaging and more eminantely useful than what I was forced to explain again and again to the lesser intellects in my university classes. I say "higher education?" Phaa! Tony was smarter before he started his masters and it took several years for him to regain the brilliance he had previousely attained. I fear that your pejoration will be far more dramatic and it may be decades before you are the same old brilliant yet acerbic brother I have grown to love.