Back to school, even while facing motherhood

I am officially an MTSU student. Classes start Aug. 29, and I can't wait.

I am a member of the first online cohorts program in the psychology department. That's just a fancy term for a group of students who are going to take their core classes together online.

I am signed up for 14 hours. I started out being very ambitious with 17 hours, but after meeting with my advisor, I decided to back off a little. With me being pregnant and with it being my first time back in school after 11 years, she thought taking 17 hours the first semester was pushing it.

After thinking it over, I realized she was right. I didn't want to risk getting so tired and burned out that I didn't finish. As excited as I am about it, I realize it's going to be a little different fitting classes around my six-year-old's schedule and being a mother, when all I had to do the last time was attend classes and work a full-time job.

My husband, Brian, and I decided we were going to pay for me going back to school with student loans. The interest rate is extremely low, and most don't have to be paid back until you are finished with school.

It's not hard to apply for these loans. I did almost all of it online. The application process takes about an hour, and the first time I did it, I made a mistake. Why is that they always ask for last names first? I switched the names around, so I got an e-mail the next day telling me the name didn't match the social security number.

I didn't realize what I had done, so I frantically called the financial aid office, after searching for a number for a while. It took us a minute to discover the problem, but we did. The phone person told me to enter my information again, the right way, and we shouldn't have a problem.

After a couple more minor glitches, my information was submitted. This process allows for your tax information from the year before to be screened to see if you qualify for any kind of grant, which does not have to be paid back. I knew I probably wouldn't qualify for a grant, when at the end of the application process it said we should be responsible for over $5,000 toward my education. I still had hopes for a loan, though, and my application was sent to MTSU, where it would be processed even farther.

It takes 10 days to two weeks for the evaluation to take place. I was really worried about getting enough to pay for my tuition and books, because the online program is a little more expensive than attending on campus.

The reason I wanted classes online for this semester and at least the next is because of the pregnancy. I know the farther along I get, the harder it's going to be to walk all over campus to the classes I need to take. Besides, my advisor said many professors will allow you to work ahead, and I like that so I can be ahead when the baby comes and not have to worry about missing a class.

Each day, I logged into the Web page at www.mtsu.edu to see if any information was there, and each day, I was disappointed. It took almost the full two weeks before I received any news.

And, it was good news. I received enough to pay for my tuition and books. Part of it is subsidized, which means I won't have to pay anything until after I graduate. The rest are unsubsidized, which means I can pay the interest as I'm going to school or I can defer it until I graduate.

If I pay the interest while I'm in school, I will save money in the long run, so we plan to do that.

I have signed up for five classes. I found out that some of the core requirements have changed since I was in school so I have to take another science and history class.

I have never been a great science student, except for biology classes. Unfortunately, I took biology my freshman year of college, and this science could not be another biology class in any form. So, I signed up for astronomy. I am also taking American History from 1877 to the present, developmental psychology, the psychology of personality and seminars on careers in psychology.

Next semester I will have to take a statistics class which also scares me as much as the science class, because I've never been that great of a math student either. However, I'm just going to take it one step at a time.

If I go full-time next semester, take some summer classes and go full-time in the fall, I will graduate next December. That is my goal to work toward, but I will be fine with graduating in the spring of 2011, too, if it comes to that. My goal after that is to attend graduate school and become a women's or family counselor.

My books are ordered, my notebooks are ready and my pencils are sharpened. Now, I just need Aug. 29 to get here, so I can get started.

Tamara Belinc is a staff writer. She can be reached at tbelinc@t-g.com.