2 months ago, I wrote a post indicating that I may be going back to grad school.

I was accepted to a different program than the one than I spoke of in that post. The communication with Michigan State University (MSU) was slow at first, and got worse after I submitted my application fee; in fact, MSU never answered any questions of mine either by email or phone after I forked over my cash to them. I never got any notice they declined me, and the online portal has this to say (still) about my application

Your application is currently out to department for review

Well, MSU, my review of you is complete, and suffice it to say that I, at least, have the courtesy to let you know I have decided against you. Had you answered any of my communications, you would know that ;>

The degree remains a study of intelligence

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I won't be naming the program or the school. I have a sneaky outside suspicion that someone has been sabotaging my educational efforts. Not that my prime suspect is even on Steemit, but loose lips do sink ships, and what get posted online can be transmitted very rapidly over a large population.

Why did I choose intelligence?

I have always been interested in the intelligence field. This interest grew out of a lifelong interest in national security. You could ask the question, “What is the best method for defending this country?”, and the answer would be to understand the threats to it. Understanding the threat is what intelligence is all about.

In addition, I have always talked about the importance of critical thinking in my writing, especially in informationwar writing. The intelligence process is basically an exercise in critical thinking. While ANY intel agency or it's consumer can be biased or politicized (ahem, see Spygate), the process itself is sound.

The interesting side of this is that my program is more academic than practical. I was hoping there would be courses in Social Network Analysis (SNA) or Geographic Information Systems (GIS), but the focus of the coursework is in how these are used.

I will be taking some of the following courses (names may be generalized)

• Intelligence Analysis
• Intelligence Collection
• Counterintelligence
• Informationwar
• GEOINT
• Research (general graduate - which I will be taking as there was a problem with the similar course I took in my first masters)
• OSINT (another topic I discussed often here)

I am debating whether I should spend any stipend money on taking specific courses in the type of software I want to learn (SNA or GIS), but I am already taking some Udemy courses on these subjects, so I don't know.

So I have already started working on my coursework, but I won't be sharing the end product for a bit, as a measure to keep my program private.

Also, I have the feeling that this will improve my writing in general, as my brain worked a lot better after my last masters was completed ;>