I had a meeting with my advisor yesterday to discuss my future plans. I created a spreadsheet that pretty much mapped out the next year, possibly year and a half of my academic career.
I walked in extremely proud of my OCD tendencies, presented the spreadsheet to him and was met with a loud and resounding “YOU CAN’T DO THAT.” I stared wide eyed in disbelief. “What do you mean I can’t do that” See I had the next two semesters planned out where I would take 12 credits (part of these would be fulfilled by a 3.00 credit internship) 2 arts management courses and 1 SIS class for my Certificate in Cross-Cultural Communications, which I am hoping to be accepted into in the next few weeks. I just stared speechless. I didn’t know what he wanted me to do. I had spent the last two days planning and organizing. I needed to complete 39 credit hours of AM courses and 15 of SIS. There was no other way around it. I couldn’t take another 3 credits of thesis coursework in the Fall that would be absolute suicide. We sat in the standstill for about 10 minutes with me sputtering “but but but” ( I couldn’t get any words out my plans had just been crushed into about a million little pieces). “I’m not starting my thesis in the Spring I am simply paying for those credit hours then” I can’t pay for 15 credits every semester that won’t work. Finally he started suggesting the only way that this would work is if I registered for the thesis course in Fall 2o11, at which point I exclaimed ” I have no problem being here an extra semester” ( I am not afraid of elongating my life as a student) “OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH” problem solved. The rest of the meeting went very pleasantly and we determined that I would take 2.5 years to graduate instead of 2.
This makes so much more sense since I am not just getting a Master’s I am also getting a Certificate.
So as it stands I will begin my Thesis course work next Spring. Although I am already working on pieces of it now for another project I have going for a conference during the summer. I have made sure that every paper I have written this year will be in direct connection my thesis topic, and will help me with compiling a comprehensive resource list. The topic as it stands now is something along the lines of….
Visual Arts as a non-verbal communicator can be utilized as a mode of discourse amongst marginalized societies and may facilitate discussion and problem solving skills through which actors may invoke social change, and the role of arts institutions in this process.
Now comes the hard part…. research lots and lots of research
Dreaming Eyes of Wonder 