Another Way In

I waited. The Fall of 2006 passed. January 2007 came and went. A new academic year started in 2007. I made it to another new student reception, but no luck clearing my schedule to start classes.

Finally, in January of 2008, Professor Barry Bluestone and Paul Grogan offered a new "open classroom" course on the 21st Century City. The course would cover a range of topics relevant to policy-makers in urban settings. It would be open to auditors around the city and the university.

A miracle happened - I registered for the course! Each session was a guest lecture or debate featuring faculty, policymakers from around the city. We had a great time discussing the issues and I enjoyed presentations from several Northeastern faculty members which gave me a good sense of the academic community.

I did a paper on the city of Hartford, Connecticut and approaches to environmental sustainability in the community. The city recently released "Greening Hartford and Sustainable Development", a new document on their sustainable plans.

How It Began

The doctoral program in Law, Policy and Society at Northeastern University enables individuals with career experience to get academic background and produce a doctoral dissertation in a relevant policy area. This was a perfect program for me, because the faculty were doing research on workforce development, urban policy, technology, sustainability. The courses were offered in the evening, and many other students were working while pursuing the degree.

I applied and was admitted in 2006, while I was a senior administrator with a private college. I knew that the degree would be valuable for my work in higher education, and that my work schedule would allow me to get my coursework done quickly.

Life interferes, sometimes, as we all know. As matriculation day approached, I ended up changing employers and took a completely different position in technology. My new job required me to travel, and I was concerned this might be a problem. Sure enough, I approached the two professors who taught the required first year courses and both responded negatively to the fact that I would need to miss a few class sessions. So I had to take a leave of absence. My dream of pursuing a dissertation program was slipping away.

Starting in the Middle

Several years ago I decided to enter a doctoral program in Law, Policy and Society at Northeastern University. I wasn't sure I would be able to afford the tuition, be able to fit the study workload into a schedule pretty packed with a full-time job and a family. After several delays and false starts, I realize that I have a chance to get through it. Maybe this story would be of interest to others with interests in research and in policies for sustainable development, which is the focus of my research.