My 11th Little Thing

Week 11:  Prepare for sunk cost

This is going to sound like less of a goal and more like a fail to most people, but I am preparing to very likely drop out of grad school and lose a substantial amount of credit hours in the process.  For a degree I want. For a degree I will more than likely go back and finish in the future.  After having taken quite a few classes in pursuit of this degree in the last five years.  And I am at complete peace with it.  I just need to get the grad school dropout process rolling.

A little backstory: I started my Masters of Library Science degree when I was pregnant with Wren in 2008, back in the days when I thought I would always work full-time. I just thought that’s the way it was. The world seems to be full of two income households, and I had no illusions about trading in full-time work for full-time mommyhood because it just didn’t seem doable. I also had no illusions about staying in a classroom for 30 years with hormonal, moody eighth graders, so I started my MLS in hopes of becoming a full-time school librarian.

Shortly after diving into my degree, the Lord started whispering “less” in my ear. I didn’t know what this meant then, but I had a feeling it meant we didn’t need as much as we thought, that we could live on less, that life in general would be better if less was our motto.  And that’s apparently what it meant, because by being provided the means to have less debt, accumulating less things, and going less places, I quit my full-time job after Sammy’s birth. 

At the same time, God started working on our hearts about homeschooling. That is obviously something I need to be home most of the time to do, and we have felt right about homeschooling since the idea was placed in our brains. I also have a part-time job that works perfectly with homeschooling, and it's, interestingly, at a library. 

My life is so different than it was when I started school in 2008, and that is more than okay with me.  I couldn't have predicted the path it would take when I made the decision to start my degree, but I'm more than happy with where the Lord has led us.


The question became do I finish my degree so I can apply for a librarian position (I am currently a LSR which does not require a Masters), most of which are full-time that I would hopefully not need nor desire for another 18 or so years, or do I enjoy the years of my kids being small without trying to marathon through a few more classes of grad school by my graduation cut-off date?

I contacted the school to see if I could receive an extension since I can’t see myself knocking out the required classes by my cut off next year. They said apply for extension, but try to keep taking classes because it probably wouldn’t happen.

For me, this is honestly an easy answer: I’m enjoying my kids. I’m somewhat goal oriented, and I like to finish things. However, I’m not naïve enough to think raising a preschooler, a toddler, and twins is going to be something I can just sort of half way do when I'm not writing grad school papers.  If I try to smash these classes in right after the girls are born, which is when I'll have to due to the time limit on my degree, I will be a crying wreck of leaking breast milk who ends up screaming, “Why am I doing this now? I don’t even need to do this right now!”

Dennis explained it even better when I said my only hesitation was the money and effort already spent.

Dennis: Those are sunk cost.

Me: I don’t speak whatever you are speaking.

Dennis: It’s an accounting term. It means you don’t base future decisions on decisions from the past if that would cause you to decide something that is not beneficial for the future. Write it off. Sunk cost. You know what feels better for the future already it sounds like.

I love that accounting nerd.

Anyway, this week I want to officially file for my extension. If the answer is no, sunk cost.  I may not receive my MLS anytime soon, but I'll have whatever degree you earn from keeping other people alive, somewhat clothed, and constantly fed.  I'm okay with that.