My Amazing Husband

Not long after Will and I met, he started talking about wanting to go back to school. As I am a strong advocate of education, I encouraged such talk. As our relationship progressed and we began to plan for a future together, he started to talk a little more about going back to school sooner rather than later... Not long after we were married he started looking at schools. I of course encouraged him but tried not to be too pushy. Honestly, I thought it would happen, but not this year. And, that opinion was reinforced when we moved into late Spring and Will still hadn't applied to any graduate schools.

Then, Memorial Day weekend happened. We spent the weekend at Will's parents house in Pennsylvania. The night before we left, I decided to buy (literally) into the trend and purchased the three Stephanie Myer novels in the Twilight series. While I read away the weekend (three books in three days), Will, out of frustration for my lack of attention or otherwise, applied to eight graduate schools. Yup, you read that right, my amazing husband completed applications to eight graduate schools in one weekend. The next week was a flurry of requesting transcripts and recommendations and then we waited... and waited... and waited. While exciting, it seemed a little unreal because it happened so fast.

By July we started to hear back from schools. My amazing husband got into seven of the eight he applied to and the eighth didn't even wait for the complete application, so it appears that there were no spots left. He also received scholarships at at least three of the schools.

In mid-July, we visited two schools, Syracuse and Brown Universities (more details of the packed weekend road trip coming in the Providence/Boston/Albany/Syracuse/Palmyra/Ithaca Weekend Trip post). After visiting the programs, the right choice was pretty clear to us (even though I still pushed for USU). With less than a month to get ready and move, Will decided to attend Brown University.


Brown University, an Ivy League school, was founded in 1764. At the time, it was the only one that welcomed students of all religious persuasions (following the example of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1636 on the same principle). Brown remains dedicated to diversity and intellectual freedom. The unique curriculum harks back to a philosophy shaped by Brown President Francis Wayland. In 1850, he wrote: “The various courses should be so arranged that, insofar as practicable, every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.” That means that Will doesn't have a set program of study and gets to choose his coursework, along with every other student at Brown.

Attending Brown University is an amazing experience for an amazing man. I will let him post about the excitement of returning to school after five years in the working world and how "shopping" for classes is going.