Next fall, I want to take 125 credits at Paradise Valley Community College. Think they’ll let me audit those? For those of us boomers who are into lifelong learning, this place is some sort of heaven. The English Department chair gave me a college catalogue, which I’ve been perusing with growing amazement and joy.
Some of these courses sound too wonderful for words. Eight different courses on computer graphic art and design, starting with introductory and intermediate digital phtography and going thorugh computer animation, web-site design, and computer-aided graphic arts. Five courses in ceramic-making. Fifteen classes in drawing, painting, and watercolor. Wanna dance? There’s ballroom, swing, Latin, hip-hop, Middle-Eastern, West African, and Brazilian dancing! You can learn to speak Japanese and Chinese (why go or here?). Music in World Cultures….Rock Music and Culture. Private instruction in voice, jazz and classical piano, guitar, trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, violin, viola, violoncello, and contrabass. Or maybe you’d like to get fit: weight training; six courses in fitness; all sorts of group exercise sessions. And get this: you can earn college credit for going on one of several spectacularly scenic hikes! We have caving. We have canyoneering. We have rock climbing. We have mountain biking at Sedona. One credit each.
Then there are the anthro courses: Bones, Stones, and Human Evolution. Buried Cities and Lost Tribes (a semester each: Old World and New World). Magic, Witchcraft, and Healing: An Introduction to Comparative Healing.
After having edited a bunch of Poisoned Pen Press’s best detective novels, it’s occurred to me that I, too, could write those things. But…how to find out enough about detective work to do a decent job at it?
Well. A would-be detective writer could easily cobble together her own course of studies at PVCC. While we’re in the anthropology department, we could start with Introduction to Forensic Anthropology.
Survey of the role of forensic anthropologist, from the crime scene to the courtroom. Understand how a forensic anthropologist can determine life history of an individual. Contrubitions of forensic anthropology to crime scene and other legal investigation. How forensic anthropology is used to decipher historic cases, and how it is depicted in poular culture. Case studies involoving criminal investigations, mass disaster incidents, and global human right issues.
Prerequisites: none
Moving on to administration of justice, the wannabe crime writer can take a three-credit course in Serial Killers and Mass Murderers, and another called Forensic Pathology: Death Investigation (should fit right in with the forensic anthropology training). Then there’s plain old Criminology:
Study of deviance, society’s role in defining behavior; theories of criminality and the economic, social, and psychological impact of crime; relationship between statistics and crime trends. Examines crime victimization and the various types of crime and categories of offenders.
Prerequisites: None
Gosh. Think of that. There are no prereqs for any of these courses. You could actually learn enough to turn yourself into a pretty respectable crime writer.
The tuition is very reasonable: $71 per credit hour; $96 per hour if you want to audit. That’s only about $300 a course—four months of instruction. For dance, fitness, and outdoorsy activities, all one-credit courses, it’s a hundred bucks. You couldn’t get a guided hiking tour of Sedona for that price on the commercial market—and you sure couldn’t get sixteen sessions of dance instruction for that. Most dance studios don’t advertise their prices (if you have to ask, after all…); the Academy of Ballroom Dance charges $120 for just six lessons.
This is a bonanza for the retired and the frugal. At a very reasonable cost, you can develop a hobby, meet new friends, learn a new line of work, get fit. Why join a gym if you have a community college down the road? And why be bored?
Awesome. I can’t wait to get retired.
😀
That’s the attitude to have. Retirement is what you make of it. I’m busier than I want to be, much busier than when I worked. Attitude is EVERYTHING!
There are so many classes that I’d like to take, if only I had the time. Your CC has a great selection, the one nearest to us isn’t half as cool. We also live next door to a university, nice in case Mr M decides to return to school. What classes are you thinking of taking?
Hi Funny,
Don’t forget abnormal or deviant psychology – your story turns into a thriller with the addition of a psychopathic character with psychotic hallucinations. Plus, there is something about abnormal or deviant psychology that sticks with you. This makes even reading psychological thrillers more entertaining!