I took a couple classes over at Plymouth State this past semester to beef up my transcript in case I ever decide to go to graduate school. I have a minor in economics, but I needed to fulfill a few prerequisites to be eligible for some of the schools I am interested in.

I’ve got a ton going on, of course, so I don’t foresee myself going anywhere anytime soon, but I figured as long as I’m somewhat near a school and have the time and the money I should just get it done. I’d love to study journalism, to really dig into it, but going into debt for journalism and then coming out to a sour job market doesn’t sound like a great plan. Who knows where journalism is headed, but having $50,000 in baggage isn’t going to speed me on the journey.

But then I found this. It’s a graduate-level journalism class aimed at 21st century media, without the classroom. I follow the professor, Mindy McAdams, on Twitter, and I was psyched when she posted the course material. The questions about privacy, activism and the online world that she poses are just the sort of discussions I love to engage in, but they only come up once in a while in the day to day of the newsroom. It’s a chance to check back into those questions, which may not make up the forefront of a reporter’s day, but they are pervasive in the background.

So I’m going to try to tackle as much of it as I can over the coming weeks, although I’ll have to integrate it into an otherwise pretty busy schedule. Oh well, it’s not like I’m afraid of a little work. I am taking a vacation to Iraq, after all…