Ever since working on reworking a friend’s character history for Dungeons and Dragons in 2011 I have been working on learning how to write with what little time I have had available.
In the last year, I have been looking into going back to school for a Creative Writing degree. Specifically, I have been looking for places to where I can complete a BA online. I found one that interested me – Southern New Hampshire University. I have had my credits transferred and accepted, and had my classes picked out. Then I had to deal with the dreaded financing. I was hoping that the Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness Program which starts in October of next year would get me there in a reasonable way, but it turns out that whatever my payment plans were for the last 10 years were not a payment plans that qualified for Loan Forgiveness so my 10 year timer will get start when I change the loans which will increase their monthly payment by almost $100. I was counting on this to have my loans paid off sooner than later to justify going back to school, but that was not to be, sadly.
Last week I met with a counselor at the UW Sauk Campus and talked with her. She said for most people who come to the campus with and existing Bachelors Degree that they look at going for a Masters Degree of some sort. She suggested a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA). I had been looking at the MFA while looking for an online degree program, but thought I should get to a BA first. It turns out that if you are accepted into a Masters Degree program in this way they will figure out which classes you need to meet the prerequisites for the degree program and then you will have to complete those before officially entering into the program. Basically, I would need to finish to the core BA courses for a Creative Writing degree. Now, unfortunately, the UW Baraboo Campus does not offer a Creative Writing Degree so that makes things much harder. I will be meeting with their Creative Writing instructor, who graduated from the prestigious Iowa University, in the next week or so to talk to her about things. I also found out that the Wisconsin GI Bill should cover at least 2 years of schooling as long as it is with a State of Wisconsin public university, so that is some good news, however, I had been checking for that specifically and I cannot find one that offers a Creative Writing degree online, although UW Madison does offer an MFA. Me sad panda. We shall see if anything comes of the next meeting.
If you are completely bored and are interested to read some of my subjectively better writings then here are a few examples that might be palatable for you:
