Graduated at last!!

Nancy graduated May 7, 2016

At last!!!!! I (Nancy) graduated from Idaho State University after a 30-year break!  I returned to school as a college junior, when our youngest of six children was a senior in high school.  It took me nine more years and 26 more courses, but I finally earned a BBA in Finance with a Standard English Minor.  When I originally asked the registrar's office at Utah State University (USU) for an official transcript to transfer to ISU, they couldn't find my records.  I asked, "You wouldn't have thrown them away or lost them, would you?" No, but they weren't in the computer system.  About a week later they called to tell me they'd found them--in the vault!

My most intriguing course was an eight-week summer class taught online.  It was called, "Critical Analysis and Creative Problem Solving."  We were at the end of our vacation in southern Utah, planning on arriving home just in time for me to begin it, when the transmission died in our camper-van.  It took us an extra week to get home, so I had to "creatively" figure out how to get my first assignment done (worth 20% of my grade!) in three days' time.  It was an analysis of an amazing chapter called "Where Have All the Criminals Gone?" in a book called Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner.  The chapter was really long, on "reserve" online at the college library.  The trouble is, the password didn't work the first day, and we were in a borrowed car that week, extending our vacation from southern Utah up to Boise ID and back to the Grand Canyon, with spotty Wi-Fi for my computer.  I nearly dropped the class, but the assignment was so fascinating, I persevered. 

Potentially, my most helpful course was Real Estate Finance, in which each group had to design a complicated Excel spreadsheet for a company that was outgrowing its current, leased facility.  With all sorts of requirements and stipulations, we were to present numerous options, all interconnected to show whichever "bottom line" was requested, either by the lessee, the owners, or the bank.  There was also a page to show "our" commission based on all the above.  There's a very real possibility that when I again find time to "study," I can begin to put together a spreadsheet showing us options for leasing the motel to an interested party so we can take off for a year and regroup, deciding on whether to continue leasing, to return to the business ourselves, to sell out, etc.  After 25 years of running the motel, we'd certainly like some extended time off!  Interested?  Let us know!

Nancy and John