My College Experience (2)

I was a part-time graduate student and an English teacher at the same time. I taught English at a junior high school in the morning, and took graduate courses in the evening. I was not allowed to study or do homework at school. I managed my time in such a way so that I could take care of my school work such as preparing for classes, preparing and grading tests, checking homework, and preparing audio-visual aids. I also did my homework, read the reading assignments and wrote papers for my graduate courses. Some week days were devoted to school work and the rest for my graduate work. The toughest time was when I was working on my M.A. thesis as it involved a field study, grading of the test and analyzing the students’ responses, doing the statistical analysis and writing and re-writing the thesis sections several times. I used to stay up late working on my thesis and wake up early in the morning to go to school. For a whole semester, I got 4 hours of sleep only. I had to write and re-write everything by hand as we did not have computers and I did not know anybody who would type it for me. When I graduated, I was proud of myself, partly because I was apart-time student with lots of responsibilities and more importantly because my thesis turned out to be outstanding. I was even more proud, when my advisor in the States read my M.A. thesis and was greatly impressed as well. She could not find any fault with it. So many years have passed since I got my M.A. degree. All is left is the great sense of achievement. The fatigue, the hard-work and agonies are all gone and they are just history.