Who Am I Scheduling For: Me or My Kids?

Posted January 23, 2015 by Alison Mitchell

Well hello, second semester!  It’s nice to see you.  And I think I’m going to enjoy your courses, even though I picked them based on what was offered at a time that still allowed me to pick my kids up at school every day, and not really based on what I actually wanted to take.

Sigh. 

Last fall, when we were registering for the spring semester, I had a list of things I needed in my schedule.  Not one of them was an actual class.

• I didn’t want to take a Monday class, because of all the Monday holidays.
• I didn’t want to take a Friday class, because my kids have several Fridays off for teacher professional development and Parent-Teacher conferences.
• I wanted morning classes, because my husband can drive the kids to school if I take a 9am class, but I’d have to find a babysitter if I took a 1pm or 6pm class.  

At some point, I know, I’m going to have to take classes that are only offered at one certain time.  But now, I’m still taking the required courses which are offered at multiple times, and I thought I could find classes that met my bizarre requirements.  And I really wanted to take Reference.  Unfortunately, the scheduling just didn’t work out.

So, I ended up with 404 – Principles of Management (Wednesday 9am, Andrew can bring the girls to school) and 488- Technology for Information Professionals, which I’m taking online.

I was really hesitant to sign up for an online class.  Part of the reason I was excited about Simmons was the idea of going to class, meeting professors and classmates and having in-person conversations.  But, with an online class I can still pick the kids up at 3pm, and if they’re sick or there’s a snow day, I can stay home and not worry about missing a lecture or presentation.  Simmons has a March spring break, while my kids have the traditional February and April vacation weeks, so the online class means two fewer times I have to figure out childcare (although I’m sure they’ll be watching Frozen for the millionth time while I watch lectures online).  Perhaps most importantly, as my advisor pointed out, I’ll likely have a lot of interaction with online learning in the future, both for professional development, and as a librarian instructing patrons, so it’s great to experience it as a student now.

I’ll let you know how it goes.  And if you have any tips for managing online classes (or, for that matter, managing being in school and having kids), I’d love to hear them.