The First (Unofficial) Acceptance

Two days ago my boss covered my shifts and my professors excused me out of my Monday classes so I could travel to Greensboro, NC. What is in Greensboro that would hold such power over me to give up money and precious (hah!) class time? A prospective Economic graduate program, a veritable cornucopia of simplistic academic delight if you will. The dean of the Economic department at UNC-Greensboro desired my presence after I tantalized him with my application and who was I to deny him me? Especially when I am so greedy for any sign of direction for the coming year and desire a place for myself that exists outside of the places more unknown to me than known. So I ventured forth.

The city: A mini College Park, MD. I think Damion and the girl will know exactly what I mean. A bit run down, a bit ghetto, and promised niceness, just not too near the university.

The University: Greensboro, Damion, might actually have a worse parking situation than College Park. $230 a pop per year for the premium parking spaces. That combined with gas prices likened more to Charlotte than Rock Hill (a consistent 20 to 30 cent difference) has defined my belief that I will be biking to school, if I have to do that much at all. However, despite the nightmarish presence of cars on campus (they have two bloody stop lights!), it's a pretty little ditty. Again I make a comparison Maryland, green and nice without being as spreadout - to the campus' detriment.

And so it was with all of these thoughts that I made the slightly terrifying journey from a 3 story car park to the dean's office. The fellow was incredibly nice with a touch of oddity (a combination of Parkinsons and slight autism, perhaps?). I chatted with him for a wee bit. A common strain of conversation that was defined by this initial discussion was my application to the PhD program. Apparently Greensboro is the only school who distinctly separates their PhD and Masters programs. Schools such as Maryland, Viriginia, ect all have their Masters built in to their PhD programs. Reasonable to assume that Greensboro followed the pack, eh? Sadly not. Though, I like their spunk. Funnily enough, everyone who spoke to me about their hesitancy of throwing me into the PhD work without any Masters background (no shit, homey, I'd have been running away if I knew that) acted as if they might have been insulting me by suggesting I couldn't make the leap. I believe they even went so far as to say that they'd gladly let me in the PhD adventure as long as they could provide me with some prepatory classes. I assured them that in now way was I insulted. I think by the time I left, four hours after my arrival, they finally believed me.

From that initial meeting I attended an interesting microeconomic/literature review/statistics class. It was fun stuff, though I'm glad not to be in the current Masters class. Theere always has to be one smart ass in the class, right? If there isn't, I generally fill the role without everyone hating me because I'm just too fun. And goofy. (I think goofy has a lot to do with people not hating me.) Anyway, this class had 3 of these smart asses. Hopefully you know the type: the loud mouth who takes precious time to say precious little and contests every little thing until they're sure that it wasn't they who were wrong but the professor who was unable to explain correctly. Wow. I have a hard time with one. Three might be the death of me.

After the class and a short meeting with the professor (cool, wiry fellow), I spent an hour and a half talking with 3 masters students and a PhD candidate. I could not have imagined a more natural and informative meeting. All four students expressed utter delight about their program, their professors and their prospects. The three masters students are actually staying past the typical graduation point (the program runs only three semesters) in order to better prepare themselves for applying to other doctoral programs. Really...great. The students sold me on the program as an incredibly structured, whole, applicative Masters education.

Then I met with the Graduate head type person to chat some more. Nice guy, fun personality. Finally I met again with the shaky dean before I left. He essentially told me that he hoped their full court press had worked and in a few weeks I would receive my acceptance and, a few weeks after, that word about my assistanship.

Well, HOT DOG!

1 program loves me, 1 hates me. We shall see how this tete-a-tete progresses.