For the past few years I have been taking courses at North Carolina State University—first, a few undergraduate courses in French and history, then graduate-level classes in history alone. In April, I was accepted as a genuine, formal graduate student seeking a master’s degree. My primary concentration will be European history.
I’m retired. I’ve been retired since 2015. My husband, Rick, is an economist who says that education is an investment and, given my age, I won’t have much time to earn a return on it. So why do I want to do this? My reply is that this education is a consumption good, not an investment. Some people have “bucket lists” of things they want to do before they die—usually places they want to see. My bucket has two things in it: studying history and speaking French.
I’m writing this blog because I wish to deepen my educational experience and see if my observations resonate with others.’ I want to comment about it all—mostly history and historiography, but also other academic disciplines and maybe even pedagogy and college administration (not personalities, though, except possibly my own). I hope my questions and comments will elicit further observations, including corrections, from colleagues and friends, practiced historians, and fellow students.
