Master's degrees: Betcha can't earn just one

OK, I bet you can just earn one master's degree.

That was certainly my intent when I graduated with my Master of Fine Arts in Acting from Western Illinois University in 2001. The MFA is a "terminal" degree, which sounds sort of like you will die after you get it, but really it just means it is supposed to be as high as you can go when it comes to the fine arts. But, it turned out I ended up not working right in my specialty area. And, after a while, it seemed like a good idea to find a new specialty.

So, I went back to school. I enrolled in the online master of science in health communication program through the University of Illinois. And when folks inquired why I was getting another master's degree, I just joked that they were like potato chips: I couldn't stop at just one. Yeah, it's kind of lame, but it was better than "Napoleon Dynamite" references ("Your mom goes to college.").

As I prepare to go to Champaign, Ill., and don a cap and gown for the first time in 12 years, I keep reflecting on the differences between earning my MFA and this MS.

From August 1998 to May 2001, my life revolved around school. I was in class starting at 9 a.m. and heading home for dinner at 5 p.m., with just enough time to eat a bowl of pasta in our apartment before heading back for rehearsal from 7 to 10 p.m.. Now, I teach from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. most days of the week and reserve Friday for getting as much of my U of I homework done as I can. I have to try to have the various articles and notebooks off the kitchen table by 5 p.m. so I can set it with five plates for dinner. From 7 to 10 p.m. I am focused on helping with my kids' homework, assisting with bath time, reading bedtime stories and trying to get some laundry folded and put away before returning to the computer

The first time around, my husband was earning his MFA, too. We worked on our homework together and when we finally completed a big project or closed a show, we enjoyed sleeping in till noon on Saturday. This time, Bob patiently listens as I launch into a description on the extended parallel process model or social norms theory or something else I am excited about having learned. He entertains the kids on a regular basis so that I can get more work done, whether it is grading the papers of my students or writing one for my professors and lets me sleep in till 8:30 a.m. on Saturdays when he knows I was up late meeting a deadline on a project.

The night before I graduated with my MFA, my friends and I celebrated together;l I didn't feel very good the morning of the ceremony. The night before I get my MS, my mom and I will be checking in to a Red Roof Inn and retiring early. When I finished my MFA I had a sense of accomplishment, but the accomplishment this time around is different. I feel ... somehow prouder?

I didn't "have" to get this degree. It wasn't on the original timeline. I had to squeeze in reading and posting and writing and filming around teaching and mothering and carpooling and homekeeping. My kids got to watch me labor over my homework. (Eva came to ask me something one night as I was trying to understand chi squares and I told her she would have to ask Daddy as I needed every bit of my brain at the moment.) The first time the degree was mostly for me. This time, it was also for my students. I am so excited about what I am going to be able to teach them about health communication, but I also have a renewed appreciation for the rigors of keeping up with assignments. (Although, soon, I won't be able to reply to their excuses, "Really? I had a test to study for this week, too. And I managed to make it here.")

One thing is going to be the same though -- when they start up "Pomp and Circumstance" on that May afternoon, my heart will beat a little faster, I'll hold my head a little higher and I'll blink a little more as I try to keep the tears from flowing.

And maybe in a couple years, it will be like forgetting the pain of childbirth, and the memories of the stress and crammed schedules will fade, and I'll start thinking about that Ph.D.

Brooke Clubbs, BSEd, MFA, MS is a communication studies instructor and freelance writer who tears herself away from academic databases to play outside in Jackson with her three children and her husband.