Well....the time has finally come....to get a master's degree. Basically, we knew that we would need to do this ever since Curtis started teaching since you will not get any raises past a certain time, unless you have a master's. We have thought about it and prayed about it for several years, but until this year, we didn't receive that confirmation to move ahead. This past year, we both felt like Curtis should go ahead and apply to get into the Master's Program in Music Ed at BYU, so Curtis moved ahead preparing an excellent application. I think that he put about 80-90 hours into it.....and practiced his head off on the trombone for the two styles of performance that he had to provide. Anyway, the application was due January 30, and we were supposed to hear in about a month. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, Curtis emailed a professor and asked about the time line this year. The professor responded that they had so many applicants this year that it was taking longer than usual to go through all the applications. He said we might hear the first to the middle of April. Then Curtis got an email that said they were meeting and making their decisions on the 23rd of March and so we should hear by the beginning of April. Yesterday, Curtis checked the email that he had on file for his application, and lo and behold there was an email telling him that he had been accepted and that he could go ahead and register for classes! Curtis can actually do this summer terms. At that rate it will take about 4 years, but we won't have the financial worries of having to take a sabbatical right away (since school districts are really stingy about that in this current economic climate) and figure out how much in student loans we have to pull out. If it works out, we might take a sabbatical toward the end to finish it up more quickly.... Also, for getting a master's, BYU is one of the cheapest around. We feel really blessed to be accepted, especially after we knew how many applicants there were this year.....and BYU is not known for being generous as we all know, in the amount of people accepted into their programs. Congratulations Curtis!
