grad school

there are a few things that i've been preoccupied with lately.  one is grad school. or doing research for it, anyway. i know i won't be applying for the next school year. definitely not ready yet. all the programs i like belong to prestigious schools: columbia university, syracuse university, george washington university, uc berkeley. my top choice right now is columbia. the only problem is i'm not sure i can handle their coursework. columbia only has a full-time program. i'm not someone who can read through text quickly and retain all that information. sigh. i really like their program.  it's very thorough. plus it's in nyc where one can find many big non-governmental agencies, the united nations, and the like.  very convenient and i'm sure the rent is also very convenient.

columbia and a few other schools have a foreign language requirement.  at columbia one must pass up to second year with a B or better. feels like undergrad allover again. i remember what studying foreign language in college is like. i might have passed it with a B but i know i was still pretty weak at it. the two years spent studying french in college i would rank myself at closer to a beginning level.  comprehension was just not there. still at another school, it requires three years of foreign language study with a B or better. to me, studying a foreign language outside of its native country is a waste of time unless you are really good at studying foreign languages like my college best friend. she learned to speak spanish very well from her high school spanish classes. i wish i could do that. unfortunately for everyone else, our level of fluency is not functional if you found yourself at work around native speakers of a foreign language. what exactly do i plan to do? :) if i get into a school with a foreign language requirement (and even if i get into a school with no foreign language requirement), i am going to go back to france. then i will attain the level of french that i need and i will get it done in under a year. another plus is that i will have four classes out of the way and i can take other courses. however i may have to defer enrollment by a year to do so, too.

why am i even looking into grad school? i don't want to be stuck at entry-level forever. my other option is the peace corps but that's not for me. though it is amazing how the peace corps has been able to boost a lot of its participants' careers. i even came across one university program that incorporates the peace corps into its curriculum. i believe you do the first year at home, then take off for peace corps (2 years), and then come home to finish the last year. amazing. maybe a bit overachieving.

so that's where my plans are at now.