I’ve always liked school, and being back in school has been awesome. There are some things that I like about school that I wish happened in real life.

1)Grading. I’ve done work for others before. You do it, they pay you and that’s generally it. But sometimes I really wonder what they think of the work I’ve done. With school, there is none of that ambiguity. You turn in an assignment and get a grade back. Now sometimes this means that you don’t do as well as you would like, and it’s a bit stressful. But I like the knowledge of knowing how I did, and also getting feedback so I know how to improve as well.

Oh, and actually, it can be quite informative to ask your children what they would “grade” you as a parent. Sometimes you realized that you need to change some things, or that you are doing better than you think.

2)Deadlines. I like to get things done, and deadlines are a powerful motivator. And also, sometimes it’s easy to want to keep tweaking projects: but with deadlines, you call it good and turn it in and never have to work on it again.

3)Learning from good mentors. This is the whole reason I’m going back to school. I want to learn from others, and school provides one of the best environments to learn from qualified people. I could pull out a book, or look up a user guide and learn many things on my own: but it is far more helpful to have someone giving you pointers, demonstrating how to do it, etc.

I’m not trying to show off, but I did want to share some examples from this semester I’ve worked on.