As the Autumn Quarter brings excitement and new challenges, it also brings new students. WRD brought in a range of people willing to tackle the beginnings of their MA online, including the department\u2019s new graduate students, who we introduced earlier last week<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the new students is Kerri Martin, a teacher, writing tutor, and one-time paralegal. She loves the brainstorming and research process when it comes to writing. Kerri is hoping to pursue a career as a Communications Coordinator for a tutoring center, and she is searching for an agent to shop out her YA novel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sokrat Gjermeni has joined the program because he enjoys \u201cbeing able to express his thoughts in a precise way,\u201d though as a law student he is rarely given much creative wiggle-room. His previous work as a lawyer in Albania prepared him for law school at Northwestern, but not the odd vernacular and technicalities of the US legal system. He anticipates WRD will expand his perspective on writing (and wants to use all this knowledge to open a business).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another new MA student is Kim Gwizdala. Before WRD, Kim received her MA in Teacher Leadership at Elmhurst College, and is teaching English at a public high school in the Chicago suburbs. Kim looks to \u201cdig deeper into rhetoric\u201d so she can not only improve her understanding and skills as a teacher, but also connect with some of the older rhetorical skills as her school\u2019s speech coach. Her ultimate goal is to \u201cdeepen my understanding of concepts close to what I teach and coach, and broaden my career opportunities for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Farrell came to WRD from an MA English program, finding that he was connecting a bit more with composition than with literary analysis. He wishes to pursue teaching as a professor and get his TESOL certification<\/a> so he can teach English and Writing in Japan. His favorite part about writing is \u201chow there are infinite ways to solve any one problem\/prompt. It\u2019s as individual an activity as one can get.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian Griggs is earning his MA all the way from Michigan and studies as he works at a local bar. He braves the time difference of night classes to be with WRD, and hopes to hone his composition and rhetorical skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dan Murray comes to WRD after a long business career. Dan, who had always enjoyed writing, now continues his studies with the goal of becoming a professor at two year colleges, and looks to participate in the Certificate Program in Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirsten (rhymes with ear-sten or beer-sten, as she likes to say), comes to WRD after a career in working with clergy and Christian religious programs. She blessed us with a perfect anecdote for Becher & Trowler\u2019s \u201ctribes of discipline\u201d when she described how, for more interaction, she rearranged the chairs into a circle for a service once, and unfortunately, people hated it, as it was so against the norm. Kirsten is also working to pursue her TESOL certification and incorporate her loves for travel and writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these MA students are ready to work (from home, of course), towards their own individual goals, and the WRD faculty, staff, and blog, will be here to help them on the way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WRD would like to introduce the new MA students and share a little about them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":11124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471,26],"tags":[562,549,544],"class_list":["post-11123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-graduate","category-student-alumni-news","tag-graduate","tag-student-spotlight","tag-wrd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}