Scared of Schoolwork

I grew up surrounded by educators. My mother was a teacher. My step-dad was a teacher. All of their friends were teachers. Teachers are weird.

I am a teacher.

Here's how the pay scale works. The more units (college, etc...) you earn beyond your college degree/undergraduate credential work, the higher on the pay scale you go. I cranked at units. I earned so many units that I even impressed the people at the District Office. I earned so many units that I could have a Master's Degree and MORE if I wanted.

Except that my units were never taken with the intention of getting a Master's degree. And here's why...

I'm a smart cookie. But please, please don't ask me to write a paper with footnotes and in some kind of format that has initials like MFA. Because if you ask me to do that, I will FREAK OUT and FREEZE UP.

Ask me how I know.

Because I tried. I tried to get a Master's Degree in Education. Or Administration. I can't remember. And I was doing fine until I was asked to write a paper at the end of the semester. The requirements for the paper were 2 pages long. And I had to use footnotes. I don't read footnotes, why would I want to write them?? And it scared me that everyone in the class seemed to know what Dr. Professor was asking for, but me.

So I ruined my perfectly good 3.8 average in units taken after my B.A. by dropping out of that class.

The moral of the story is: Just because someone is a Teacher, it doesn't mean they're not afraid of schoolwork.

Or: Don't spend a lot of money on a really expensive graduate school program if you think you're going to drop out when someone says the word "footnote."