My name is Jennifer and I'm a first year PhD student at MSU.
Where to begin? I write, I teach and I play with tech :) Such tiny little words to explain the path that I have taken to end up here.
For this journey I started out with a degree in African American Studies and instead of teaching like I planned, I accepted a job with the government in non-profit work about education technology programs. It was great while it lasted but the great chop of 2004 left me trying to figure out what I was going to do.
So I decided to get an MPA so I would stop hearing about how my experiences made me too expensive to hire without an advanced degree. As I was getting my MPA I started research African American women in pursuit of the doctoral degree because I really did intend to go back to the non-profit world. Then my adviser told me I should get either a JD or PhD.
I thought about his advice for a while and while I was thinking I was getting my MA in Composition and Rhetoric because that whole writing thing never left me. Before you go back and scan to figure out where I talked about writing- I didn't :) However I joined my first creative writers group in the early 90's and have been one ever since. I write fantasy - the title is shifting to speculative fiction - and have been honing my craft with a great group of people. Some of my best writing habits I learned from these writing groups: research, daily writing, breaking up writing blocks, teaching and editing.
I started teaching English Composition and Creative Writing at Mott Community College (we can discuss the best interview ever later) and trained to teach online/hybrid courses because they sounded neat- I didn't anticipate the work load!! But I was hooked with this notion of using technology to enhance what I did.
So with a ton of missing details and really exciting stories - here I am working towards my PhD looking at the Digital Environment & Cultural Voices.
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| My boys - the reason I will usually post at night :) |
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