Where it’s finals in a class you’ve never managed to attend, and you climb flights of stairs, and can’t find the classroom...

Maybe that’s what kept me, for decades, from my MA.

I regretted not getting that degree until I realized I was going on not getting it and began looking at options. Low-residency programs cost more than my first house. No nearby university offered a master’s in the area I dreamed of—poetry and the environment.

About the tenth time I flipped past the Midwest ad in Poets & Writers, I flipped back. I inquired.

Yes, I could do coursework and keep my newspaper job. Yes, I could work with poets and naturalists I honored and wanted to work with—and yes, they respected Antioch and would work with me—not a single turndown. By enrollment time, I knew what was expected, so I wasn’t paying tuition for months of hoop-jumping.

I studied volumes and wrote reams. My husband learned laundry. I learned to go without sleep. I had the time of my life. Setting goals myself, working individually with a mentor in my own learning style, made it work. Administrative questions? Answers were a phone call or e-mail away. Sessions on campus provided bonds with other students. I still regard my faculty advisor as a mentor. I didn’t enter and leave an academic setting this time, but entered a learning mode that continues.

The master’s study I began at McGregor-Antioch is a lifetime thing. Publication, workshop offers, even a newspaper editorship have come since graduation.

And the academic nightmare? It’s gone.