#16—Academia: one solid year
Creation Date: 2022/12/15
Prep talk—
To recap my first year back home after my third stay inpatient, the primary thing I want to emphasize is that I am now more in control of pharmacology drug use. I was taking lower dosages of an anti-psychotic and I was allowed to stop taking "the hunger med" suppliment for the anti-psychotic drug use. I was in a new residency and academic mental health professionals were much more receptive to my needs in terms of how I wanted treatments to go, what I expected and how long I wanted to do their programs. Self-advocacy was a major part of it all. It was easier for me to communicate exactly why I saught help all those years ago, with the emotional stress that took a toll on my health leading me to an emergency room visit.
Back to web dev—
The first I wanted to do was get back into the web development program at the college I had attended before. I did, and I submitted everything for residency and financial aid. I was on my way.
The first semester back I picked out a full semester's worth of courses and they were all online classes. This would be good for me whilst working with mental health programs and services to try different pharmacology drugs and dosage levels. What I also learned about getting back into the web development field at the college was that because of the epidemic going around, more students were exploring web development as a career option. This was great because I couldn't take web development courses before because of the lack of course enrollment, and therefor the course for the semesters past would fall apart and no longer offered. Another thing was that the required courses for the program had changed; and for the better if you ask me.
First semester—
The courses I enrolled in varied in subject. Three of the courses required a final essay no less than five pages long, and the formats were all different. Because these courses were online courses, I had the ability to work at my own pace, as I needed to while feeling out drugs and side-effects. I was in outpatient clinical services and programs while in college, and these services required therapy sessions.
I had to take breaks frequently throughout the first semester because I had the same feelings as the last time being on anti-psychotics. I know academia isn't as psychotic as a place of business with the interactions daily when working, but I did want to learn the material of the lectures and make my essays seem well written. I used to love to write essays years ago, so I knew I had it in me to do so. One of my essays required a book read, so it was kind of like a book report. I felt like a child again. Who remembers PizzaHut's Book-it rewards!? This guy.
By the semester's end my GPA had climbed to the highest cummulative average I was not used to getting, but hey, I never did like homework. I was just more mature after all I had been through in the mental health system's revolving door for the past nine years.
Because this was a full-time status type of semester for me, and my GPA for the semester was quite high, I received a letter in the mail about two months after the semester ended to congratulate me on making the college's "Dean's List". Oh, I celebrated! Family members and I went for a dinner at Applebee's. It was delightful.
The next semester—
I had achieved the honor roll in my first semester back from my third stay in the psychiatric hospital, and I can somewhat say that the lower dosage of the anti-psychotic provided a much better experience for me academically. I was ready for another semester. This next semester I was going to actually take a web development course. Finally, I know.
For this next semester I picked out two courses because courses required for graduation were getting down to like two more part-time semesters after this part-time semester. I suppose I didn't quite plan out my course schedule the best when I got back into academia about four years earlier. But, I was excited for this semester, part-time or not.
My skills weren't all that rusty, but I knew I was about to learn responsive web design processes, so my websites would respond differently based on which device was being used by my webpage visitors: devices like mobile devices, tablets, laptops, and PC's. There were some great projects throughout the course, and those required front-of-the-class presentations. My public speaking was a little off because anti-psychotic use brought back my stutter when speaking. And if I started speaking fast, my words turned to word salad. I tried to keep calm during presentations but I love making websites and presenting my work was such an awesome experience that it was easy for me to get into my designs. And yes, I made my first responsive website by semester's end, and I received great reviews.
The other course that I had enrolled in for this second semester back from the psychiatric hospital had very much to do with the web development class. The thing was that coursework was expected to be done on an Apple computer. No way, uh uh. Can't work like that. I need Bill Gates' Windows, thank you very much. So, I did most of my work from home. There was however, a group project late in the semester where students were assigned to groups by the Professor. The group I was assigned to turned out to be a good group that worked well together. Some groups fell apart throughout the process. I tried to take a leading role, and I even added some flare to the presentation. I brought in glow sticks and a discoball for the group to present with. It was a blast! Our group had our picture taken, and the photo was uploaded to one of the college's instagram pages that covered the academic field of study the course was found in. We were sort of celebrities. Sort of.
There was a project in particular that went hand-in-hand with the web development course I was in, and it had to do with brand identity. I created what I felt was a fantastic monogram of my name's initials, and I also made a unique logo for my name in generalities. I have them up on my portfolio website that became my final project for the web development course.
At the end of the semester, and yes it was part-time, my semester GPA was about the same as the previous full-time semester. Because this second semester back was only part-time, I would not, however, be making the Dean's List. Kind of a let down, but I did delve into the coursework, and I can now make responsive websites.
What's next?—
After that second part-time semester actually learning the web design material I was adament about learning when I first got back into academia, I looked over the remaining part-time semesters I would need to graduate. Some of the courses had prerequisite courses required, I would need an internship, and I also needed a break to delve even more into my studies from this past two semesters. There were subjects I was most interested in from the coursework and I had what I thought were some neat ideas that I could formulate into something I could pitch to investors some day.
When I was ready to get back into academia after a year off, and after speaking with the program administrator, there would be changes to the field again. The proposed changes to required courses for a degree in web development seemed reasonable, but the changes wouldn't take effect until the next academic year, and that is next year as I write this blog. So, I made the decision to get into a different field of study for a semester, one that I wanted to get my feet wet in as I believe it will help me create something unique as a degree program project that was suggested to me as an alternative to the internship required.
And that's where I am at right now academically; waiting for the changes to web development to take effect. I am still in outpatient services and I still have trouble with side-effects. But I did enroll for the upcoming semester in a different academic field of study. I feel ready and I want to learn.