Reaching Lifelong Goals as a Nontraditional Student » Udet http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com Redfokker's Nontraditional Student Resource Site Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:43:30 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Journal of Military History http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2010/01/journal-military-history/ http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2010/01/journal-military-history/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:41:12 +0000 Redfokker http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/?p=449 Again, I have gone too long without posting.   I’ll have to make a strict goal about this…   One of the premier Christmas gifts from my wonderful wife this year was a membership in the Society for Military History.    Another professional historian association directly related to my area of study.   They publish a journal .   It is filled with scholarly works about military subjects (all eras) and reviews of other publications in the field.   I eat this stuff up, the wife says it would put her to sleep.   I have been able to digest a couple of issues now, and I am in geek heaven!!   As my college career advances as a nontraditional student and history major, this publication will be a great resource for me.   In addition, the contacts made through active participation in the Society will be extremely valuable down the road.   As I progress as a historian, essays and scholarly papers will be submitted for publication in the Journal.  To think that one of my historical essays could be a footnote in someone’s own paper is kind of a rush!! (history geek rush, but you get the picture…)   I pour through these types of papers every term in my research for assignments.   I have used my Endnote Program to develop my resource list for my Ernst Udet book and the Journal of Military History figures prominently in my saved notes.  My wife has a real knack for picking the perfect Christmas presents for me.   Thank goodness I thought better of giving her that lowly kitchen item as a gift.  It would be pale in comparison.   I will be looking forward to each quarterly edition of this journal, and will thank my wife for it each time.    Let’s see, quarterly publication, a dozen roses every few months…sounds like a win/win to me!! ]]> http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2010/01/journal-military-history/feed/ 1 League of WWI Aviation Historians http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2010/01/league-wwi-aviation-historians/ http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2010/01/league-wwi-aviation-historians/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:58:45 +0000 Redfokker http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/?p=444 My wonderful wife has given me the perfect birthday present, (actually it is next Friday the 22nd) with a long overdue membership to the League of WWI Aviation Historians. After a lifetime of interest in the Great War, and 20 years of active research, model building and study I am finally part of a group of my “peers”.   I have known about the League for a several years, but it has always been one of those “things I need to do, someday”.   Being a History Major and a nontraditional student, memberships in professional organizations such as this are very beneficial to your college career.  Associations in your field of study are available for everyone.   Many have special student rates for membership.   I have been “shopping” around in the field of History Studies and have found over 20 different organizations that I would be a member of.   Maintaining that many memberships would be daunting, so it pays to be selective.   I am unique in the fact that I plan to specialize in one area of history so I can be selective in the associations joined.   The resources and networking possibilities of a membership in the League of WWI Aviation Historians will be invaluable to my goal of writing the ultimate book about WWI Ace Ernst Udet.   I have already made a connection with an author of WWI history through Facebook (there is a whole post in the works about this story…)   Putting together research about WWI history is challenging at best, but with new friends and associations with fellow historians in the field, the sky is the limit!   The league has biennial meetings with seminars and presentations of scholarly papers and books.   The next meeting will be in 2011 and my goal is to have a good part of my Ernst Udet book and research ready for presentation.   A lofty goal, but one that will drive my progress toward a real-time deadline! And in addition to this, I forgot to post about my wonderful wife’s Christmas present to me…a membership in the SOCIETY FOR MILITARY HISTORY!   Which also includes a subscription to the Journal of Military History!    Exciting stuff in my History Major World.   I’ll put together a special posting about this membership in the next day or so. ]]> http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2010/01/league-wwi-aviation-historians/feed/ 0 Non Traditional Student Tools http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/11/traditional-student-tools/ http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/11/traditional-student-tools/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:55:34 +0000 Redfokker http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/?p=418 I’m so excited!   I have just installed one of the best tools a Non Traditional Student could ever have – ENDNOTE – Bibliographies made easy.   This program is a must have for any serious research writing.   If you are a Non Traditional Student just getting started back in college, I whole heartedly recommend this program.   Go out and buy it today!!  Basically, Endnote  will allow you to SEARCH online bibliographic databases, ORGANIZE your references, images and downloaded PDF documents, and most important – CITE WHILE YOU WRITE!   I purchased the program Endnote 2.o, there are more updated versions available, but all will do everything you need when writing your research papers for college.  I am still in the learning curve…lots of features to master.   I did a cursory search of my probable thesis topic about WWI ace, Ernst Udet and was able to start locating some valuable resources.   And I have just scratched the surface of this program.   As an aside, I find that there has been very little written about Udet.   This is both a plus and minus for me.  One one hand, the available resources out there are few, but I don’t think my topic will have much competition out there.   I found just 17 references in the Library of Congress.   I will be digging into academic data bases when I get up to speed with Endnote.  One of the really fantastic features of this program is it’s integration with Office 2007.   Citation of references will be available with a single click, and the MLA foot note will be magically entered into the document I’m working on.   I’ll spend more time with the tutorials on Endnote and report my findings of the other spiffy features as I learn them.   If you are a Non Traditional Student that will be writing college level research papers over the next few years, this program is a definite must have.   I think there are a number of similar programs out there, but I had this one suggested to me by my History Professor.   He said if this program would have been available when he was writing his Thesis, life would have been sooooo much easier!!  I will update this post with more information about Endnote.  I will be diving into using it for my Non Traditional Student research paper for my WR123 class….Now that I mention this, I have a due date for my mid-term portfolio coming up soon.   Better climb that learning curve quickly! ]]> http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/11/traditional-student-tools/feed/ 4 Independent Study Credits http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/09/independent-study-credits/ http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/09/independent-study-credits/#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:25:02 +0000 Redfokker http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/?p=171 I have registered for 3 credits of Independent Study this Fall Term.   As a History Major and a Non Traditional Student, I am still trying to figure out this whole “college” thing.   I took History 203 during Summer Term at Linn Benton Community College and my fantastic instructor Scott McAleer informed us about this opportunity.   Basically, you and your adviser come up with an independent study project in your field.   I will be receiving 3 credit hours for this “class”.    Since I am a History Major, we have come up with a project for me to start developing an annotated bibliography in my area of study.    During the term, I will research all the materials out there for a specific subject, and catalog and review each of them.   Since this can become an overwhelming task, I will narrow my search to my possible Master’s Thesis subjects.   I am heading in two main directions at this time; the German ace Ernst Udet’s WW1 career, or The development of aeronautics during the Great War. Both of these topics will benefit me during my Non Traditional College journey.   I have goals of writing a book someday about Ernst Udet.   Developing a complete bibliography now will save  a huge amount of work for me in the future.    Also, the Master’s Program at Oregon State University in History has an emphasis on the History of Science (Linus Pauling is a major influence in this…).    This all becomes part of my ongoing college goals.    I am in the process of setting specific goals for my College experience (another blog topic waiting to happen…) and both of these topics are the building blocks for reaching these goals.   I have very specific goals for my Non Traditional Student Journey and I really have to start pointing my class scheduling  efforts toward them.   While I am at Linn Benton Community College finishing up my Math requirements,  I will be filling my schedule with under grad classes that propel me into my Junior and Senior years at Oregon State.    My wife suggested a couple of days ago that I should look into more writing classes….we all should listen to our wives!!!   What a great notion…since my new hobby of blogging is becoming such a big part of my life, and I’ll be doing a huge amount of writing over the next few years,  boning up on writing skills is a must!

I am probably preaching to the choir here, but I highly recommend looking into an Independent Study class.   Your adviser at your institution will help to tailor a program that will specifically dovetail into your area of study.   The individual attention from your Independent Study Adviser will be a big bonus here as well.   I really hope to develop a relationship with Scott as a History advisor as well as a History MENTOR.

]]> http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/09/independent-study-credits/feed/ 0 Historian’s Dream Image http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/09/historians-dream-image/ http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/2009/09/historians-dream-image/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:53:07 +0000 Redfokker http://reaching-lifelong-goals.com/?p=165 One of the fun things about a site called “Stumble It” is just that, stumbling onto some interesting online content.   While hitting the “Stumble This” button yesterday, I found the most amazing picture.   A search of the Internet calls it “most famous men on one photo”.   I do not know where this image originated, but I spent some quality time with it.   A thumbnail will not give you the same effect.  You need to view this image in it’s full size.   There are both famous men and women all over this piece.   See how many you can identify.    There are some pretty obscure ones, and it takes a historian’s eye to catch them all.

all_world_famous_men_in_one_single_photograph_artworkI would suggest clicking on this link to bring up a 1600×600 size image to enjoy it in it’s fullest.  Maybe I’m just a History Geek, but I was really impressed with this work of art.   (set it as my desktop…)   This image is on the web in a number of places, blogs from Israel, Denmark and India come up in the search.   Where it is from originally, or it’s artist, I have not been able to track down.    This brings up all kinds of questions about copy write issues and reprinting “intellectual” properties.   The Internet has muddied the water on these issues for a number of years.   I have many images of World War One aircraft on my hard drive that have come from many sources.   I do not use them for my own commercial gain.   Most folks that are in hobbies related to history (I build scale models of Ernst Udet’s WW1 biplanes) scan the Internet regularly for any research data that is out there.   The use of these images for reference in your hobbies is common these days.   I also have used these images on my blog posts to illustrate information about a specific subject.   Is this copy write infringement?   Legal minds have been working on this issue for quite some time now.    Not being an artist, I really can’t relate to this issue from their perspective.

Anyway…..   back to the image at hand.   If you start at the top left corner and work your way across the painting, the “easy” famous persons stand out.   Some of the more obscure persons require a little thought and research.   That is the fun of this image to me.   I pick one person from the group and try to find the image online that matches my “guess”.    I’ve been able to identify most of the famous people on this painting.   See how you do.   Be careful, it is a major time leech…   good thing I don’t have any homework to do right now…

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