For those who know my sordid history (hah!), I went off to UVic Law back in ’91. I didn’t actually want to be a lawyer in the normal sense. I didn’t want to be in court prosecuting or defending the innocent or winning liability cases. Some people dream of that, and that’s okay. Whatever floats their boat. For me? I knew I wanted to do something government-related. And, at the time, there had been a few smaller municipalities in Ontario who had hired lawyers with MPA degrees too as their combination city solicitor and city manager/administrator. At the time, it seemed perfect for me! Municipal. Government. Law. Yes! Looking back, it was a stupid thing for any city to do and if I was their lawyer, it would be the first thing I would recommend avoiding. There’s a reason why cities have in-house lawyers to advise the city manager and council on what they can do, within their scope, and what they should avoid doing in certain ways. To use the cliché, any city manager who is also the city lawyer would have a fool for a client.

But part of my challenge was that I knew little to nothing about what “government” work looked like, and I loved law. A combination degree seemed like the perfect solution. Unfortunately, I didn’t like law school. I couldn’t stop seeing the “people” in the cases and being enraged on their behalf, even if they had been dead for 70 years. They were wronged! A helpful constitutional law professor pulled me aside at 6m and let me know that part of my frustration was that nobody else could see the people anymore in the cases, just the legal principles. If I could still see them at 6m, I would continue to see them throughout my schooling and beyond. Not a good thing, not a bad thing, just a decidedly different approach and result than what the rest of the students were experiencing.

Eventually, I did a co-op with the Ministry of Education in BC and…dun dun dun…I loved it. I spent most of the summer doing case summaries of education-related cases but also some side policy projects here and there. When the summer was over, and I was going back to school, I was offered a contract for part-time work. I loved all of the work. But it made me start to question if I really needed to be a lawyer. Three people in the unit were policy analysts, while only 2 were full lawyers. And I liked the policy work just as much. As I did the fall semester, with a full course load in public admin, it was like returning home. I could breathe easier; I liked the coursework better. I got it without really trying; it all made sense to me. Even organizational behaviour as a paradigm, which some people hate in public admin.

Something left undone

In ’93, I started a public admin co-op with the federal government, loved the work, and stayed for a second term. Then some contracts. Until finally I got a permanent, indeterminate job. In international. What? Wait, there’s more.

I went from municipal to an international focus; from policy issues to administration of programs and logistics; and from legal cases to general relations. Within the first 30d of working for the feds, something weird happened…I was given a special project to coordinate a presentation on the Short- and Medium-term Outlook for the Asia Pacific Region — aka, what would happen in the Pacific countries over the next five years, politically and economically? It was kind of fun, lots of interactions with the full policy team, it was work I could do, and there was a sense of both purpose and heightend urgency. The deck went to “Cabinet” although I only had a vague sense of how Cabinet committees worked…I was pretty humbled to realize that the deck I slaved over for most of the month, with lots of late nights, had been presented to full Cabinet. All of the Cabinet Ministers. And the Secretaries of State. And…dun dun dun…the Prime Minister. And not just some random memo that might have been on his desk for 30 seconds. No, this was a full 45-minute presentation and discussion of MY deck. Well, okay, so I did all the econ slides and somebody else wrote the political slides, but it was MY deck. And we published it as a book with a cover. Colour slides throughout. For ’93, everybody was REALLY impressed with what we had, even our PCO overlords in the Foreign and Defense Policy Secretariat and the Clerk were complimentary of our work, even if all I heard was “the PM saw my work!”.

Eventually, I stayed in Ottawa working for Foreign Affairs and CIDA, and completing my MPA degree at Carleton. As I finished the degree in ’04, I wondered if there was still an itch to scratch on the law school side. I considered doing UofO law school and trying to work part-time or school part-time, etc. But I realized that I didn’t need a law degree for anything I was planning on doing in government, not even really sure I’ve “used” my MPA formally anywhere in there (sorry, my MA in Public Policy and Administration). Still, the learning is all rolled together in my brain with my real-world experience. I decided…I liked law, but not law school per se, and if I did anything, it might be more legal studies than law school. I set it aside. But the occasional itch remains.

I don’t feel like I “failed” somehow by quitting law school. It was more a byproduct of choosing a career in the public service at the time rather than waiting until later. I had found a niche that I wanted to pursue. And my mental compromise was that I promised myself I would at least finish my Master’s. That would have felt a failure to leave unfinished, although as I said, I didn’t officially need it for my career. A BA from Trent was perfectly good.

And yet, on an irregular basis, I find myself dipping a toe into the legal world. For example, I wrote a long post about speed cameras and how the law, legislation and administration interacted in ways that I found troubling. I don’t find myself often agreeing with Doug Ford, as Ontario’s premier, but politics makes strange bedfellows. So, even with my general deference to government decisions, I found the approach of municipalities to be, well, wrong. Ethically, legally, administratively. Professionally, even, just bad government. Ford revoked the authorization to do it, claiming it was all a cash grab, and I’m not sure if that is totally true for the reasons, but I agreed with the decision. Other traffic calming methods are not only more effective, but also don’t trigger the same ethical, legal, or administrative challenges.

Or on the public service front, I am troubled by some of the decisions of the PS Labour Relations and Employment Board. Decisions that seem to have gotten the basic legislation wrong. That created situations that are completely unworkable on the ground, with perverse outcomes. One that came out in the past week is completely laudable from the perspective of advocacy for persons with disabilities, and completely wrong on administrative and legal grounds.

How do I know I still have the itch? Cuz cases like this make me…umm…animated. 🙂 I’m literally frothing at times. “HOW THE F*** DID THEY GET IT SO WRONG?”. This isn’t rocket science. It’s black letter law. And while the law can change, most of these bad decisions will simply be overturned on appeal or further legal challenge, so all it really does is force the parties to negotiate different outcomes or have it drag on for months and months to get to what the original verdict should have been. There’s one tribunalist who was smacked around by their bosses after the first three months, where she regularly made decisions that were outside her authority, got overturned repeatedly, had numerous complaints filed by the employers and employee reps, and she’s still working for them. These are not lifetime appointments; they’re three-year service contracts. But well, she’s still there. Not the same one who just messed up disability law, as I digress. The point though is that I react strongly to case decisions that most people would yawn at, if they even saw them.

More broadly, I generally don’t believe in regret. Life is lived forward, not backwards, and we make the best decisions we can with the information we have in front of us. Phrases like “I wish I had known then what I know now” seem silly to me. Really? You’re going to lament an information gap? That seems like a lot of real estate to give to a minor problem to live rent-free in your head.

So I don’t regret not continuing with law school. I don’t regret trying it either. But I do feel sometimes like there is an itch to scratch a bit more, or perhaps a mental bucket that I would like to fill somehow. Without going to law school.

What can I do instead?

Well, I can do law school. I know, I just said that I wasn’t going to law school. And both are true. I could DO law school without GOING to law school. Let me explain.

Part of what pushed me off certain types of academic studies in the past is the realization that I don’t need another degree. What I’m really looking for is a professionally-curated study guide. Like the syllabus for a university or college course. Someone who knows the material, knows the environment, and knows the areas that people need to understand to “get it” has already prepared a curated guide to studying that area. Formal school learning is usually a combination of 4 things:

1. Formal “book” learning from reading texts, following the course outline;
2. Engaging with the material with other students and teachers in class (aka a collaborative learning component);
3. Engaging with the material through papers and essays; and,
4. Being tested on the material through assignments and exams.

If I have the course outline/syllabus, I can do #1 on my own. It’s basically what you do for auditing online courses or watching YouTube training videos. Some online courses with Coursera allow auditing students to post comments (#2), engage with other students, etc., but it is usually minimal. I write blog posts all the time (#3) where I, for example, have read a section of a psych text or watched a lecture, and I’m engaging with the material. Or even a chapter of a non-fiction book that I’m “working” my way through. But I don’t do the last one at all…I have no need for accreditation beyond my own learning desire.

So if #1 and #3 are open to me to DO law school studying without GOING to law school, I could in theory scratch some of that itch. The trick is getting law school course outlines. Like most graduate disciplines, the course outlines are not often posted online. If you’re enrolled in the course formally as a student, you can easily see the full syllabus through an online portal; if you’re outside as a random internet user, you can’t get to it.

But if I COULD get them, what would that look like?

Law schools in Canada generally have the same base curriculum for common law, and it hasn’t changed since I went to law school 30+ years ago.

• Criminal law is the same across the country (unlike the US, where it varies by state), and so it is easy to study the various acts in the same way. An individual professor might add a small slant to it, focusing on specific areas (sexual assault) or specific types of issues (mandatory minimums), but most of the material will be the same. And they’ll likely opt for one of two main textbooks to use, plus course packs.
• Constitutional law is relatively similar in that it is the Constitution across all of Canada. However, provincial cases may figure more prominently in the “variable” portion, or they may link it to public law in general, spend extra time on the Charter, etc. I find it interesting that way back when I was a student, the Charter wasn’t that old (less than 10 years) and they were debating whether it would be a sword or a shield, and how s.1 would work to prevent “technical” violations of procedure from tanking cases as it does in the U.S. Many cases in recent years have moved that needle in ways that nobody predicted back in ’91. Lawyers were still in the honeymoon phase.
• There’s a set of interrelated courses that are offered in different ways by each law school in Canada. Primarily focused on legal research and writing, they often intersect with procedure, advocacy, the foundations of law, policy, and the interpretation of legislation. Some even raise it up and call it “administrative and regulatory law”, although that is usually a second-year course in more fulsome coverage. There might be two courses, five mini-courses, etc. Nothing too terribly different in any of them overall, as they trod the same general grounds.
• Contract law was deadly for me. I could not stay awake for it. It bored me to tears. But it’s relatively the same across the country. If they have a joint program with an MBA, they might have some extra insights to incorporate, but not usually.
• Tort law is a hybrid area. While all common law applies across the realm, so to speak, there are some unique statute-related torts that differ in each province. Tort exams are legendary in law school for fantastical elements and are almost ubiquitous in nature. Imagine if you will a scenario, perhaps in this blog post, where I am writing about a recent decision of the PSLREB. I go to the site to check a fact, and as I do so, I am re-enraged by a line of the tribunalist. I am so upset that it triggers a cardiac event, and in a panic, I knock over a scotch and soda onto a heater at my feet. My apartment has been cold of late, some issue with the central heating, so I’m running a heater with no cover on it to stay warm. The heater catches fire, and I grab it with my bare hands, singing my fingers while still in full cardiac distress. I rush to the window, and drop it out of my apartment to the street below. It hits an air conditioning unit on the way down, knocking it loose and pulling the cord from the wall, knocking over an expensive Ming vase that was sitting nearby. The air conditioner unit and fiery heater unit land in the backseat of a passing convertible, whose driver swerves and strikes an elderly man walking around the neighbourhood with no clothes on. Analyze all possible claims for compensation and identify the major arguments for the plaintiff and defendant. You have 30 minutes. It’s a wild ride for the whole year.
• I’ve left Property to the end because it is generally province-specific. There are similar principles at play across the country, outside of Quebec, and some provinces have codified part of property law, while others have left it entirely to common law.

I did notice that something interesting has happened in the last thirty years. Other first-year classes have cropped up. Several offer a course on Indigenous issues. And not a mini-course, a full-year class. Several law schools offer a separate course, often shorter, in ethics, professionalism, or dispute resolution. Two other courses are transnational law and access to justice, but only at specific universities. I have no idea how extensive they cover either topic.

So where does that leave me? Essentially, it means that if I could get outlines for Contracts, Criminal, Torts, Property and Constitutional Law — the five biggies — I’d cover almost all of first-year law. If perhaps I could get UVic’s Tort law syllabus, AND they also had course packs available, say at UVic’s bookstore for $250, I could perhaps read through all of the Torts material in a few months from the coursepack and/or pulling courses online. I could even blog about sections as I went. Not from a “this is the law” perspective but more from “does this seem fair/just” perspective or even just “is this interesting?”. As a future writer of mystery and legal fiction, I could think of it as really boring research. 🙂

But, as I said, the trick would be to get access to the syllabus for a first-year curriculum. I’ll worry about other years later. Soooo, do I have ties to any law school that might, perhaps, at least CONSIDER sharing their syllabi? Well, I was a student at UVic some 32 years ago. I’m sure they won’t remember me (only one of my professors is still listed as active faculty!). But if I present my case to the Dean? I assume the answer will be no, but if you assume a “no”, you never get. I sent an email off to her on Thursday, we’ll see if I get a response.

What else is out there?

The Great Courses has some law-related courses, and there are lots on Coursera and elsewhere online. The problem is that they are not based on Canadian content. I could take a whole course on Constitutional Law, and if it is solely focused on German laws, not that useful. Or what’s going on in Africa. Or the US. I might find it INTERESTING, and would enjoy a comparative course, almost like “comparative religions” except the religion is rule of law. There are some little itches to scratch there, but nothing satisfying.

I found four programs that are more rigorous, Canadian, and more likely to generate my interest. Also, with the chance that my retirement would come with a formal education allowance for tuition, I focused on the main colleges and universities. Some are online, one is local.

Starting in the West, Royal Roads has an MA in Justice Studies and it can be done mostly online. As with the MFA options in Canada, it includes a small residency requirement at certain times (10-11 days here and there). It looked interesting, although I initially thought it might be a little more “government-positive” than I might want (with the military background). Thesis track, course track, interesting courses. More open-minded than I thought, or at least covering the right topics. Oh, wait. Domestic tuition is … umm … $28K. Yeah, that one is NOT happening. I have an itch, not a need for open-heart surgery. Wow. Although they do a very nice job of putting the whole program schedule online. With lists of courses that I could consider replicating elsewhere. 🙂

Athabasca University doesn’t specifically have a legal studies or law program, but it is “interdisciplinary” in nature and has a pretty “open” approach to online courses, finishing everything virtually, etc. They are, traditionally, the most distance-education-enabled university in Canada, after all. I have it on my list to come back to just to see what other areas might interest me. Today, it is just for legal studies. Their MA in interdisciplinary studies has some broad strokes that would work — community studies, equity studies, global change, or heritage and social history — with a bit of sub-specialization. For example, if I look at global change (aka globalization by its old name), there are electives available in:

• GOVN 540 – Global Governance and Law (3)
• GLST 652 – Democracy and Justice in the Context of Global Capitalism (3)
• GLST 611 – Social Movements (3)
• GOVN 677 – Privacy and Transparency in a Networked World (3)

That would be only 12 credits out of a required 33 (4 courses out of 11), but there would likely be a research or thesis component too, and other courses on history or politics that would / could weave in “law” elements. It’s not bad. Except they charge $2K per course. Or $22K for the full MA. That’s not impossible, particularly if I’m getting $17K as an education allowance. I’d balk at the $28K above, partly as it is not exactly the program I would want. But I could tailor Athabasca quite a bit. And that’s only one program that I’ve considered so far. Definitely an option.

For the online options, the third one to consider is Wilfrid Laurier. My wife did her undergrad there, so there’s a sentimental attraction. Except the issues is the focus. It’s not so much legal studies; it is a MA in Public Safety. It describes itself as focusing on five pillars — border strategies, countering crime, emergency management, national security, and public safety GIS and data analytics. I have interest in border strategies from a labour mobility standpoint; maybe some stuff on countering crime for investigatory techniques; emergency management techniques and options for handling disasters; and virtually no interest in national security or data analytics. So, WLU does not make the cut.

The ones listed above are online and somewhat geared to professionals in the field, more so than to full-time students.

Yet there are lots of other university programs out there in Canada that would meet my need, albeit on-campus programs. Ultimately, I’m interested in learning, not moving. But, in the immortal words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “No, there is another.”

The Princess Leia of Legal Studies

I’m in Ottawa, and there is the University of Ottawa Law School, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Instead, I’m talking about Carleton University’s Master’s of Legal Studies program. Yeah, I know, why didn’t I start with them since I am an alumnus? Well, you’ll see.

The program is under the Department of Law and Legal Studies (no, there is no JD option). And there are three options for an MA degree:

• 5 credits of straight coursework;
• 4 credits of coursework and 1 credit for a research paper; and,
• 3 credits of coursework and 2 credits for a thesis and oral exam.

I’ll go sideways for a moment. I like writing. It’s my passion. And I have no trouble getting words on the page. Some people balk at large research papers or even a thesis; not me. Back in ’96, my brain was in work mode, and I wrote what was supposed to be a 25-page essay on APEC for a MA course with Carleton’s international development program. I was counting on some loopholes for the page count as I bit off more than could be chewed in 25 pages — the history of APEC from 1989 to 1994, aka the first five years, and what it had evolved into after 1994 with the introduction of Leaders’ meetings. I figured I’d probably end up around 30 pages plus a bunch of charts, maps, and tables in annexes that I wouldn’t count towards the total. The professor agreed, no worries.

I was almost done, maybe around 90%, and took a writing break to work on my bibliography. I checked the syllabus for the exact preferred citation style, and I tripped over a small reference to the length of the paper. 25 pages, as I knew. Double-spaced. Right…wait, what? I was working for government, we didn’t do ANYTHING double-spaced. My paper was close to 35 pages single-spaced plus all the annexes. F*** me. I apologized, wrapped it up fast, and ignored another 10 pages of analysis I had planned to do that probably would have pushed me to 50 pages. There was nothing out there like it in academia, as I had sources most people didn’t. But it would have been about 100 pages double-spaced, I reckon. Tightening might have brought it down to 80. Yeah, I am not worried about being comprehensive or word counts.

I would be nervous, as most people would, with an oral defence, but not overly so. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, but most defences are relatively safe spaces for two out of three professors to let you talk, show your work, so to speak, and then poke you with a sharp stick once or twice. It’s not like a Ph.D. defence, and honestly, I would even be willing to consider that along with the much longer 300-page thesis, if I hadn’t made several people promise to shoot me first.

I just don’t know if I’d be THAT interested in writing that much, vs. a broader-based curriculum (the coursework option) and some blogging. The research paper would be about 40 pages, the thesis about 80. With the thesis requiring some primary research. Well, probably. I don’t have a lot of ideas for a MA thesis topic, but I do have one. I fear, however, that it is more Ph. D.-level than MA-level.

When I worked for the Ministry of Education in B.C., I summarized a lot of cases involving teachers, unions and the Boards of Education. The scenarios were quite often similar. A teacher, usually male, had engaged in behaviour that was deemed inappropriate. The BoE, in response, imposed some form of penalty ranging from reprimand to suspension to termination. The teacher would complain to the union, the union would provide a lawyer, they would challenge the penalty, the Court would hear the complaint, and the teacher would be put back in a classroom with some modified penalty less than what the BoE imposed. These were not questions of semantics. In some instances, male teachers walked into the shower area of the high school girls’ locker room while the girls were showering. The teacher said they were supposedly checking for plumbing issues, or some nonsense. It was BS, everyone knew it was BS, but when the judges went to look at the law and labour agreements, labour law trumped anything that the BoE relied on to protect the students. Sure, there were cases where the evidence was wonky, or the situation was questionable, but most of the cases were relatively clear-cut. But the BoE couldn’t fire the teachers outright.

So, as a thesis topic, I would be interested in reviewing cases in a jurisdiction to see how they were resolved and what was deemed more important — the labour rights of the teacher or the safety rights of the student? I became very jaded with the actions of teacher unions reading all these cases, and these were only the ones that made it to court. Thousands of other cases were settled outside court, often with less-than-termination results.

Yet here’s the kicker. If I took, say, Ontario as the jurisdiction. I’d probably have to spend 10 pages (double-spaced!) just introducing what the Ontario legislation requires. Then perhaps another 20 pages talking about union contracts. And another 10 talking about the rights of the child both domestically and internationally, as well as criminal provisions. Call it 50 pages and I wouldn’t even have started the analysis yet, I would just have the framework. Then I’d have to pick relevant years — would I look at the 1980s vs. now? All of the cases since 1950? The last ten years? I spoke to someone who did something similar for their Ph.D., and they had a grant with students helping them summarize and code all the cases for several parameters in order to be able to do statistical analysis of other variables at play. She had several students helping her for almost two years. Before she even got to the analysis and writing stage. Which is about what is needed to do the job properly. And I wouldn’t want to do the job superficially.

Or perhaps I could look at the issue of timeliness in something like the PSLREB decisions. There is clear legislation about deadlines for grievances and the Board regularly waives the legislative deadlines. In other cases, they hold to it religiously. With no real rhyme or consistent reasoning other than a cursory nod to estoppel. It is a VERY technical area. And very manageable, likely even able to be contained within a research paper. But do I care that much? I do, personally, but it’s more like a light irritation, not an obsession.

Or what about Automated Speed Cameras? I definitely have views on that! But do I want the rigour of a research paper or thesis? Or do I just want to cover a series of law courses as a general foundation for myself?

If I go the coursework route, there are 10 required courses although I have to put a small asterisk on at least one of them.

I could consider one of their specializations i.e., Accessibility, African Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. But I’m not sure what would interest me in that vein. I could see some interest in LACS trends compared to broader North American trends, maybe some stuff related to colonization, heritage, minorities, etc. Something big, like the use of the death penalty, or something more nuanced, like their approaches in law and/or practice towards sexual assault and exploitation.

But for the general coursework, they have six themes and research areas (marked with *):

• Citizenship, Human Rights and Political Economy *
• Conflict Resolution
• Gender, Sexuality and Identity *
• Crime Governance and Security *
• Globalization, International Law and Transnational Justice *
• Law, History, Culture and Humanities *

The titles are too general to scream “take me!”, so I’ll have to examine the course offerings. Excluding the Research Essay and MA Thesis “course” codes, there are 23 other courses in the calendar. Two are relatively required — Theories of Law and Social Transformation (as a general foundational intro course) and Legal Method and Social Inquiry (essentially qualitative research methods, applied to legal studies). Both are classes that I could try to be exempt from…for Theories of Law, I have two undergrad courses, a year of law school, and an actual Carleton course in administrative law. However, they are more likely to be interested in my MA courses in political economy, as they are closer to the same PoV. For qualitative research methods disguised as social inquiry, I have undergrad and grad courses already in research methods. I doubt they’ll waive the requirements for either and those would be tough to maintain interest in at this point in my life.

But there are 21 more courses, right??? Exciting and new? The Love Boat of academia? Well, hmm. Maybe I’ll play with the ordering a bit.

1. The Canadian Constitution
2. Law, Regulation and Governance
3. Law, Economy and Society
4. Law, State and Politics
5. Law, Crime and Social Order
6. Historical Perspectives on Law and Society
7. Crime, Law and Security
8. Crime, Social Change and Criminal Law Reform
9. Police and Capital
10. Law and Gender Relations
11. Feminism, Law and Social Transformation
12. Race, Ethnicity and the Law
13. International Economic Law: Regulation of Trade and Investment
14. International Law: Theory and Practice
15. Human Rights, Citizenship and Global Justice
16. Consuming Passions: The Regulation of Consumption, Appearance and Sexuality
17. Legal Theory and Contemporary Issues
18. Tutorials/Directed Readings in Law (can take twice)
19. Contemporary Topics in Legal Studies (can take twice)

So the first two are a bit dry, and based on the wording in the calendar, they would likely NOT let me take #1 anyway (since I have ConLaw as part of my law school program).

#3-6 are essentially political economy classes applied to law. I am not a giant proponent of political economy as a discipline, even though it is quite popular. I find it lacks sufficient granularity (or as the academics say, predictive power) to apply to specific situations rather than historical trends that depend quite often on political PoV and assumptions. I have little interest in doing more PE classes.

#7-9 are interesting options from the viewpoint, perhaps, of using social reforms as an agent of legal reform.

#10-12 are more diversity issues that are important but do not resonate with me for more studies. Similarly, for #13-14, which are about international law. I’ve been there and done that between DFAIT and CIDA, I don’t feel the need to revisit it. Human rights is hugely attractive generally, but not enough to do a general course in it.

#16-19 on the list are basically “contemporary issues” in different forms, with one on consumption (and some odd elements on appearance rather than actual sexuality like prostitution or public nudity), and then three for PE treatment of general issues, a seminar, and a reading course option.

Which leaves me…uninspired. Sure, I could look at crime and society theory. Maybe I might even sustain my interest for a course. An online one that I was auditing on Coursera perhaps? Not one where I’m doing weekly readings, doing presentations, small assignments and some sort of essay. Snooze-arama.

If I contrast with the MFA option, the MFA pulls me in for the technical learning and the substantive learning. Or applying it to poetry or even romance writing. Legal studies tied to tattoos and regulation of appearance? Probably not. Send me a short article summarizing or get ChatGPT to do it. I don’t need to shell out thousands of dollars on a course for it, even if someone else is paying the monetary freight.

Where does that leave me overall?

I suspect that Obi-Wan Kenobi was right again. These are not the droids I’m looking for.

I think I have 6 obvious options:

• Hacking the law school experience and just reading 1L materials myself;
• Coursera courses from around the world;
• Royal Roads focus on justice;
• WLU’s focus on public safety;
• Athabasca’s focus on interdisciplinary studies; or,
• Carleton’s uninspiring but traditional academic program, mostly tied to political economy.

I think I would consider the hack first; Athabasca second; Carleton third; and maybe Coursera-like courses fourth (albeit on a smaller scale). Royal Roads and WLU are out for now.

I just have to decide if formal learning is what I want for legal, or if I am going to go a different direction in retirement (like the MFA options).

Stay tuned. I need more research before I start prioritizing.

I follow Kristine Kathryn Rusch online as a “working author”. While I have read some of her books, as well as those by her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, I am far more interested in her nonfiction posts about a career in the writing business, emerging themes, etc. One thing I really enjoy about her blog and feeds is that, in her 60s, she is taking courses at the university for fun. Not because she needs a degree, but rather as a commitment to lifelong learning and a desire to learn about specific topics.

So, with some possible WFA options for retirement, including up to $17K in tuition for formal education, I’ve been wondering whether to take some courses if that is the retirement/separation route I take from my current job.

Do I need a formal education option?

I have a mixed view of formal educational institutions ever since I finished my Master’s. As a quick recap, I did my four-year undergrad at Trent University in Administration and Policy Studies — the equivalent of a commerce degree, with political studies and economics thrown in. Then I went to the University of Victoria for a year of law school, followed by a law co-op and a semester of public administration courses, and then a public administration co-op in Ottawa that has never ended! I did 8m co-op, formally, and then I just…stayed.

I eventually took some courses at Carleton, then some more, and then finished my Master’s in the School of Public Policy and Administration in 2004.

If you’re doing the math, I took my first grad courses in ’91 and finished my actual and different degree in ’04. A thirteen-year program to get a Master’s. I regularly joked that it was the “tenure track” equivalent of being a professional student. I also told Ph.D. friends that if I ever talked about doing a doctorate, I was to be shot immediately.

Yet as I was finishing up my Master’s, I had a small niggly thought about law. I started my law degree in ’91, an LL.B. now J.D. in Canada, and while I promised myself I would finish my public administration degree, I did feel a bit of a twinge of something in not finishing my law degree. Not regret exactly, as I don’t regret not becoming a lawyer nor even of not finishing law school. More that I felt that I missed out on some learning related to law itself. I briefly considered maybe finishing my law degree part-time, if I could, or maybe a separate Master’s in legal studies or something equivalent. But I chose “no” relatively quickly. Primarily, I didn’t need the degree. And I was tired too.

But over the next ten years, that “itch” changed somewhat, evolved if you will. I realized that it was not just that I didn’t need the credential. I also didn’t need the full school infrastructure just to learn. I did two courses through Coursera, including a pretty interesting one about the nature of games. Another was about meta-literacy. I could have done either one or both as a formal course with tuition and credit, but it was just learning for me, and free curation of the material was readily available. There are 1000s of courses on Coursera and elsewhere, plus options like The Great Courses. I’m slowly doing a psych course, and have worked through parts of a photography course. It’s hard to stay committed to them when working full-time and other parts of life intervene, but that’s more about time management than a failure of the material/course.

Yet, even though I don’t NEED a formal degree program, if I were given free tuition for some courses, maybe I might do something formal?

Creative writing options

Obviously, from my posts, I intend to write a lot in my retirement. An obvious option might be an MFA program with a focus on creative writing. There are about 8 MFA programs and 6 MA programs that are decently ranked in Canada. The downside, however, for most MFAs is a residency requirement. Of the 14 programs I found, 11 assume that you’ll be on campus full-time, most are 1-2 years, and none are in Ottawa.

UBC lists their residency component as optional, 2 years long, with a cost of about $1900 per term/5700 per year. King’s College and Dalhousie University have an online option with a low-residency requirement, also 2 years, and a cost of about $9400 per year

The UBC distance education MFA is focused specifically on creative writing. It is 36 credits in total, with 24 credits for creative writing coursework, another 6 credits for electives or coursework, and a thesis worth 6 credits. Most of the courses are 3 credits each, so basically easier to view it as 10 courses (8 in program and up to 2 electives) plus a thesis counting as a double-course. The courses include poetry (I like it more when it is treated as lyrics, not poems per se); new media (might be okay); writing for children (not high on my list); creative non-fiction (yes and no); drama for screen (yes); fiction (yes!); television (yes); speculative fiction (sure); career support (meh, not really what I’m looking for from them); and teaching creative writing (?). It’s not bad, and online is attractive. For distance, they charge per credit, not per term, which means more expensive and I have up to 5 years (probably $2100 per course); unfortunately, if the $$ is from my education support measures upon leaving the government, I would have to do it in two years. The final thesis details are a bit scant in places, but it seems to be a full-length product (easy peasy).

King’s College in Halifax has a two-year program, much of it online with two annual “residencies” — online (January for six days) and in person (June for nine days). The MFA for KC is a more guided mentorship with one class in a semester on structure and fiction plus mentoring, then another class in the next term plus the mentoring, etc. Everybody follows the same curriculum with a goal to writing a book, as opposed to the UBC “multiple types of writing” approach.

Oh, wait, the Dalhousie one? It’s offered jointly with King’s College. Same program. Oops.

I was curious, though…are there any BFA programs? Well, yes, there are. But none are offered as online only, and most are offered more as adjuncts to other programs (as minors, for example).

Now, I **could** consider doing something purely online as an MFA from other universities in the US, but the tuition money from my retirement would not apply to those institutions, so that’s out.

What about courses just at Algonquin?

The college is only a few blocks from my house, so I went through their course catalogue to see what interests me. Whether online or in person, it would be relatively easy to do.

In their Advanced Technology faculty, they have a 1-year program in AI software development, but I suspect that I would find it too structured for me. That’s hard to describe, but I mean that the college’s curated approach would not likely match the parts of AI that interest me. Possible, but not a high-demand option. They have options for computer programming, with some stuff that is both mobile and web-linked, but honestly, I feel like I’d rather just learn on my own online. There are tons of materials available, and I could pick and choose what interests me. I have two apps that I want to build, and they’re on my to do list for “sometime”. But again, not sure I would want to do 1-2 years online learning programming (one of them includes COBOL????) or two years doing mobile application design and development. Their web development and internet app courses are a bit more flexible and offered online.

They have a Creative Media and Communications faculty too, which includes a very simple creative writing program. It’s offered online and part-time, but basically is a simple set of five to six courses in total. Could be fun, although I don’t know that I would get much out of it. They have a much more rigorous Film and Media Production program, 42 weeks on campus…I don’t know if I would enjoy all of it, but well, there ARE some interesting elements. They also have a Social Media program, online, part-time, and heavily focused on marketing. Not really my jam. But that could be the point.

I confess I was surprised to find anything of interest to me under the Culinary, Hospitality and Tourism faculty. But there it was…baking and pastry arts! A one-year hands-on program. I don’t care too much about the pastry learning, but a year of baking? Hmm…although, sure, I could do a lot of baking on my own with recipe books and YouTube channels.

I am really disappointed though with the Public Safety and Legal Studies faculty. I was sure that they had a “private investigators” option that I was interested in. I read about it a few years ago. If they did have it, it’s gone now. The only thing available is Police Foundations, which could help my writing career. But it’s full-time, online, and has a LOT of courses that do not interest me at all.

My feeling is that if I’m looking at various college courses, there are other ones in Ontario (and elsewhere), many are offered online, and my search might have been a bit narrow to start only with Algonquin.

The weird side of Algonquin, though, was that they also have their “general education electives”. A few years ago, they culled some public offerings that were pushed annually, sort of “Adult Learning” for fun. But there is still a long list that is offered on the website as courses you can take along with your regular program. Or all on their own. If I weed the list down, here are the ones that surprised me:

• Theme 1: Arts in Society
  • GED5005 Greek Mythology
  • GEN1957 Science Fiction
• Theme 2: Civic Life
  • GED2200 Free Speech and the Challenge of Social Media
  • GED5301 Death, Dying, and Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)
• Theme 3: Social and Cultural Understanding
  • GED5006 World Religions
• Theme 4: Personal Understanding
  • FIN2300 Introduction to Personal Finance
• Theme 5: Science and Technology
  • GED5003 The Science of Play
  • AST2000 Introduction to Astronomy
• Degree Breadth electives
  • PSY2100 Introductory Psychology
  • ENL4016 World Literature
  • ENL4100 Creative Writing
  • ENL4200 New Worlds and Alternative Realities: Speculative Fiction
  • PHY4000 Black Holes, Big Bangs, and the Cosmos

So where does that leave me?

I still need to pursue more info on the PI side of things, as I’d love to learn some of the skills to aid in my writing. Plus, I have done NO searching into photography programs. And maybe I should look into online legal studies or even physics. Hmm…I guess I’m not as far along as I thought. It’s good to have options.

What I really need is for the government to pay for me to learn how to kayak. 🙂