It is late September and I really should be back at school

 It is quite possible that I am not the oldest student in the program. As near as I can tell, all of the students are working adults. They seem t come in clusters from companies. They all seem to be later in their careers, not early. Most seem to be treating it like a job. When I applied to the program, I expected that it would be me and three other students. Clearly I was wrong in that estimation. We are grouped into a cohort and will progress through the program together. For each class I see 41 attendees. My guess is that two of these are the professor and one other school related person. Therefore there are 39 people in my cohort, including me. The program was started last semester, Fall 2023, so we are the second group. We learned in the second week of classes that there is another cohort with 40 students in it. So, rather than the four or so students I was expecting, there are about 80. It is a great pleasure to spend time with these student in my cohort. They are from around...

 Assuming I complete the program on time, I will be 65 when I graduate. It is a two year program. The first year is all coursework. the second year is devoted to a Praxis. There is a course devoted to Praxis topic selection at the end of the first year. I am in the process of developing ideas for my Praxis. For coursework, we meet once a week on Saturday's. The two classes run from 9AM ET to Noon ET and from 1:00 PM ET to 4:00 PM ET. For ten weeks. Each class has an assignment and a discussion question due before the start of class the next week. There are 8 assignments and 8 discussion questions for each class so each class has a one week break. Lastly, there is a Mid Term and Final for each class. The finals are both this weekend. They are online and must be started no later than 5:00 PM ET on Monday March 11, 2024. The instructors have office hours on Monday and Friday evenings at 6:00 PM ET and 8:00 PM ET. I attend when my schedule allows it. I rarely have an actual question. M...

 I am back at school. When most people are at a point in their career where they are thinking about retirement, I am back at school. The first ten week term is coming to and end and I really need to study for my two finals. Instead, I am writing about my experience. Before I go into what I am doing, this post will cover how I got here and why now. Even when I was in undergraduate school, I enjoyed teaching. I spent many hours working on the help desk and helping students with their computer projects. For one class, the professor had each student teach one class period. I learned more preparing for and conducting that one class than I ever had in a whole semester. I was hooked. During my career I have had many chances to teach. It could have been an afterwork class on Object Orientation, C++, or some other topic of the day. It could have been teaching the newly hired college graduates during their orientation program. All of these were very gratifying. IN the year 2000, I had the op...