SEPT. 4-19, 2009
YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN Book, Music, & Lyrics by Clark Gesner, Directed by Wendy Koeppl
& 'PSU 4U #PJTF t CPJTFMJUUMFUIFBUFS PSH t Tickets: $11 general, $9 seniors and students 14 | SEPTEMBER 9–15, 2009
| BOISEweekly
the Philippines, Southeast Asia and Mexico, and founded by her mother-in-law—for years. Penwell always wanted to finish her degree in education because Mercy in Action has a midwifery school. She’d like to teach the midwifery model of care to people in other countries so they can continue to provide needed services. With the deadline to lock in her classes looming, and having trouble meeting the student teaching requirements because of her on-call schedule, she realized designing her own degree under the general studies program was her best option to give her a flexible program she could finish. She customized her degree to include teaching, medical anthropology, foreign languages like Tagalog, childhood development and multicultural perspectives. Boise State is also one of many colleges and universities that offer the Federal TRIO Program, which is designed to help low-income, first-generation and minority students. The TRIO program can be a good option for nontraditional students, said Ellie Pierce, an administrative assistant at Boise State’s School of Social Work. She said she hopes her husband, Shane Pierce, will be able to take advantage of the program. “My husband is a classic [case],” she said. Shane dropped out of high school and worked for several years in the construction industry. But he had a series of knee injuries while working for a couple different companies. For the first two injuries, workman’s compensation paid for repair surgeries. But on the third, the workman’s compensation provider paid him just $7,000 for an injury that required a total knee replacement worth $25,000. The family scraped together the rest of the money on their own. “He was kicked to the curb by the private workman’s comp company,” Ellie said. Not long after that, Shane went to work for a different company that laid him off when construction work dried up. Shane is finishing up work on his GED, and he and Ellie hope he can finish it in time for next spring semester at Boise State, where he will be a first-generation college student with an undeclared major. Ellie is going back to school as well, using the general studies program. She’s designing her degree with psychology, management and leadership training classes and statistics, which she hopes will help in her career advancement at Boise State. She’d like to go on to get her master’s degree in academic advising. She’s excited that Shane will be going to school with her. “I’m not sure what Shane’s going to go into,” she said. “He’s a blank slate.” She said she’s not going to try to push him into one area of study or another. “The last thing I want to do is say, ‘Oh, I know exactly what you should do,’” she said. But in some ways, it doesn’t matter what he chooses to study. “Any degree helps earning potential,” she said. “Having a degree would help me anywhere.” And while a degree certainly helps, sometimes, a second one is necessary—as I found out. I may have made up my mind what degree to pursue, but beyond that, like Shane Pierce, I don’t have a lot of direction yet. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing with my degree. What I do know is that I’m enjoying the process. I’ve learned to write a few minor Java programs, and since I didn’t know the first thing about code a year ago, I always get a little thrill when they work like they’re supposed to. I’m working hands-on with wires and chips in one of my labs. And I’m back doing math again. I’m computing the value of three-dimensional objects in calculus, and I’ve also learned that 1 + 1 = 1 (at least in Boolean arithmetic). It’s the sort of thing that almost makes you want to sprint up to the blackboard, chalk in hand, solve a problem, and then run back to high-five your teammates. Almost. I’m not that much of a geek anymore. WWW.BOISEWEEKLY.COM