I have completed my Master of Arts in Professional Communication at Royal Roads University!
My team submitted its final case study today, and that's it, that's all she wrote, the fat lady has sung, and (as one of my teammates put it) Elvis has left the building. See, I'm a much better communicator now :-).
After these last two intensive, stimulating years of getting a graduate degree while continuing to work, I feel lost. It will be lonely not reading and contributing to online discussion boards every day, and interacting with my cohort. I'll be in withdrawal for awhile.
Overall it's been a great experience, and I'd certainly endorse the program. It wasn't perfect, mind you, but with my cohort being just the third since the degree got underway, there were bound to be some kinks to work out. The faculty has many brilliant members, and I urge present and prospective learners to take full advantage of them.
The two three-week on-campus residencies on the beautiful RRU grounds were amazing -- an intellectual boot camp that in the first year quickly had us all pulling together, and in the second feeling like a Band of Brothers and Sisters :-). The residencies are one of RRU's greatest strengths. They bond learners with learners, and learners with instructors, and I don't see how the program would work without them.
It's been a hell of a ride and I'm going to miss you all!
As for the next while, I'm going to take it easy for a couple of months over the summer and decompress. I may even, ahem, finish some of the textbooks in which I just skimmed the "good parts." :-)
I remember stumbling into the lounge in the dorm at 5:30 a.m. one morning during the first residency to brew some tea and get an early start on some reading. A veteran learner from the previous year's cohort was already there (he was from another time zone and still adjusting) and we got to talking about the voluminous readings. He gave me some excellent advice: "The most important thing to learn is to quickly judge what you MUST read, and what you can leave for later."
Then come autumn, I aim to start putting some of my new knowledge to use.
Thank you fellow learners, thank you instructors, thank you RRU staff and librarians.
Posted by Paul at June 16, 2007 07:29 PM