Wow, it's been awhile since I've visited! I've been extremely busy finishing up my final (gargantuan) thesis for my MA degree. The final tally was 82 pages including the table of contents and works cited pages. I wrote about changes in technology over the last decade and how its affected our communication. To summarize I wrote about the influence of Napster, Friendster, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook (of course) and iPhones (smartphones) which is how we access many of those social networking sites.
Webster University offers the 6000 thesis class as either a 9 week or full semester (18 week) version. I opted for the full semester version as I have a lot of things going on within my life and my family so I didn't think I would have time to complete this in 9 weeks. Plus I did not research very much before the class as I wasn't completely sure what I was going to write about. I knew beforehand that this was going to be a monumental task but I had no idea until I got into the writing process which was in mid-March.
Good thing I took the full class! My professor said the department dean was looking into removing the full semester 6000 class. Big mistake Webster! Those students working full-time and/or with children need as much time as possible for this to be complete. Besides many of the graduate students I had classes throughout my tenure were years removed from their undergrad classes and full-time employees. The full semester class caters to individuals who have a lot going on in their lives, not traditional mid 20 something types who may still be living at home with time on their hands.
Anyway I'm glad I finished the thesis. There was so many other things I wanted to include like the influence of Google, social networking blocked at workplaces, ending relationships electronically instead of face-to-face and cyberbullying issues. Cyberbullying would have been especially good to talk about with the Megan Meier incident which was huge locally then blew up nationally. But there was only so much time, I could have written probably another 10-15 pages!
My class was primarily the paper and a couple of assignments that were added to the paper, no tests, quizzes or anything else. I received an A- in the class, I'll have to follow up when I retrieve my paper to see what I earned on it. I'm glad as I wasn't completely sure that my paper flowed all that great, but it's finished--bottomline.
And my Master of Arts program is completed also. My graduation was on May 7 at The Muny in Forest Park. I was glad to have family and friends there to support me that day. I'm sorry my mom-in-law was under the weather and could not make it, but completely understand.
Since I've been working on this degree for the last two and a half years it didn't sink in that I suddenly had some free time. I guess I didn't realize it until two to three days later!
If you're bored and need a sleep aid I've included a link to read my thesis. Hopefully it's a easy read :)
Ripley docs
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