University of Richmond

Wednesday night, University of Richmond had a seminar to go over the programs offered by their School of Continuing Studies.  This program is perfect for me, because I wouldn't be in classes with traditional undergrads who will be wondering: "Who's the old lady in the class?"  ...and I won't be wondering: "Why do I have to sit here with a bunch of teenagers who don't know what a mortgage is and how much is too much to pay for toilet paper?"

They offer a night program, where you can transfer up to 60 credits from another institution, and take traditional classes to complete the remaining credits to earn a Bachelor of Liberal Arts.  Also, they have a weekend college, where you still transfer your 60 credits, but you take 10, highly-concentrated, 6-credit classes, each meeting Friday nights from 6-930 and Saturday 9-230 for a 7 week stretch.  This program is awesome!

After hearing about it, I thought: "Why would anyone want to take 20 3-credit classes and have to take 2 at a time, when you can take 2 back-to-back every semester and be done in 2 years?"  I'm sold.

The only catch is that I'd lose Friday nights and Saturdays before 230pm...good news is there's nothing I can do on a Saturday that I can't move to Sunday.  Graves Mountain Apple Harvest Festival is both days, pumpkin patches are open Sundays, along with the grocery store, movie theaters, and Lowe's.  So, is that really a con?  The only time I'll regret it is if there's a special event, like a Civil War Re-enactment (which is still on my life's list, even though I blew it off once), is only held on a Saturday.  But chances are, it'll be an annual event, and I can catch it once I've graduated, right?

The professors who were hosting the seminar were so friendly, even staying after it was over to give Dave and I some individual attention - he's thinking about going back for a certificate in Information Systems to make himself more marketable...I think Professor Wray has a crush on him...she made him sit down and tell her all about himself and describe his hopes and goals and dreams.  She's cute.

Here's the Jepson Alumni Center, where the seminar was held.  It's an old plantation house, converted into a conference center. 

Based on the new exterior, I was expecting a typical hotel-type conference center inside, and there's a little of that, but the original, center section is still decorated as if it were still a residence.  Beautiful.  I didn't take any pictures of that part - didn't want to be that girl for once, but I did snap a shot of a display case with UR memorabilia:

On my journey to find the Alumni Center, I drove around campus aimlessly, because I came in at the wrong entrance, and had only printed the part of the campus map where my intended entrance was.  The campus is lovely, and I got a glimpse of parts of the new football stadium - they have awesome spiderweb details on the railings and gates to the stadium.  Very festive:

I definitely drove up a dead end road, assuming I could just turn around at the end, but instead of ending, the road kept getting more and more narrow, and that's when I realized the road was no longer a road, but was now a sidewalk.  Students who were walking down said sidewalk were (justifiably) gawking at me, probably wondering:  "Why the eff is this chick driving on the sidewalk?"  I thought about rolling my window down and just admitting that I am, in fact, a dumbass who is driving on a sidewalk, but I didn't. 

I'm really excited about this program, and now I just have to finish my Associate's at JSarge and transfer on over.