Being a Student

I feel that, for most of my life, I have been a student. At the time this Diary was written, I was a student at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). I was working toward dual Bachelor’s degrees in English and History, and planned to pursue a Master’s in History, writing my thesis on some letters exchanged between a gold miner who became a store-owner and his family in New York state, from the 1850s. Prior to my time at CSUS, I was a student at San Joaquin Delta College (SJDC), where I had started taking classes when I was 15 (I ended-up graduating from high school at the age of 16, by taking what is called the California High School Proficiency Exam.) At SJDC I took whatever courses interested me, from Middle Eastern History and Politics, to Renaissance art and on to some Religion and Botany classes.

After I returned from my trip to Europe I continued taking classes at CSUS, but outside of my major, as I wanted to explore some alternative areas (lots of Political Science and International Relations-type classes.) I never did get around to graduating from CSUS – I was perfectly happy taking class after class. However, in 1997 I moved to Florida, and quickly realized that I did want to get back into school. I attempted to enroll at the University of Central Florida (UCF), but found that I’d have to take many "redundant courses" unless I had an AA degree. So I enrolled at Brevard Community College (where I ended-up having to retake several courses, included American Government and basic English, as, for some bureaucratic reason, they didn’t transfer from California.)

My AA in hand, I enrolled at UCF and pursued a degree in English, in the Technical Writing track. I graduated from UCF in December 2000, with a BA in English, worked for two semesters, and now I am back at UCF, working toward an MA in English, with a Technical Writing concentration.

This semester (Fall 2001) I am taking two courses. The first is called Medical Writing for the Technical Professional and the second is called Hypertext. This website, A Traveler’s Diary, is being created as an assignment for the latter course.

Return to the Introduction to A Traveler's Diary