University

I am so excited about being an online student with Southern New Hampshire University. I am currently working on a degree in English and Creative Writing and every professor that I have had thus far is excellent. There is a lot of reading and writing that I am doing for this degree and it is worth every part of it. I never thought that I would be working on a Masters at forty-nine years of age, but I am having the time of my life.

So, with that said, let me encourage you to take classes somewhere even if it is just for self-gratification. Find a subject that you are interested in and take some classes where you can be challenged. You may not agree with everything that you learn. I certainly don’t, but it is worth learning from people with whom you disagree as much as it is from those with whom you agree. Either way, you are learning.

And this is the point of seeking another degree–at least for me. I just love to learn. I want to see what others are thinking and learn from them. I can learn that there are many commonalities between me and someone who may be considered a liberal while I am a conservative. We may have the same likes and dislikes. We may differ, however, in social issues or economic issues or the government or morals. Either way, humanity as a whole has some commonalities.

This is what I am learning in this degree program. Right now, in my Literary Theory course, I am learning about Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, Marxist theory, and poststructuralism theory. All these theories are used in every facet of life. Do I fully agree with these theories? No, but I see where I have been trained (even in ‘Christian’ institutions) to think in some of these ways from professors who have utilized these theories whether they knew it or not. I have also learned that I need to depend all the more on the Scriptures as my true source by which to live. All of these theories have some good things and some bad things. Some things may appear to be good according to the Bible while other things are very sinful. Unfortunately, I find that all of these theories end up going to the extreme as much as I can go to the opposite extreme of where they are.

I am challenged. I am enjoying this. I am glad that I am a student at Southern New Hampshire University. When I graduate (it will be in 2017), I plan on pursuing other degrees as I am able to afford it. I look forward to continuing to grow in knowledge and understanding always seeking wisdom from God’s Word, the Bible. In the meantime, I am going to remember what Paul the apostle said in Colossians 2:8-15:

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according tot he tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.