Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Traci, M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction
What aspect of distance learning do you like the best?
The easiest thing about it is that I can do the work wherever I am ... on the plane, in a hotel, outdoors ... wherever my computer is, I can be working!
Name: Traci Macnamara
Age: 31
Marital Status: Single
Current Job Location: Antarctica
Goal: To complete the writing of her first book and have it published
School: Goucher College
Target: M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction, August 2007
I also like that I have flexibility to do the work within the life that I live. While I have been working on my MFA, I have worked for 11 months in Antarctica at McMurdo Station.
I have also traveled in New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, through the U.S., and lived the summers in Chamonix, France.
Tell us a little bit about what you do now at McMurdo Station.
At McMurdo, I am currently a "communications operator," which means that I talk daily with scientists conducting their research in remote field camps.
I monitor HF and VHF radios, regular telephones, radio telephones, and Iridium (satellite) phones. We coordinate resupply and equipment requests, and we let the scientists know when planes or helicopters are coming their way.
We are also on standby for any type of emergency situation, whether it comes from the scientists we work with or from anyone in distress in the region, whether it be a fishing boat or a tourist vessel or a private expedition.
What has been your favorite course and why?
I am currently doing an online internship...in order to tackle some of my technology fears, I took on an internship working with an author who has a book upcoming in order to help create buzz surrounding her book's launch.
I'm facilitating guest submissions to her website in blog format about the book, and I'm doing some writing for it. She agreed to teach me how to use blog technology and help me enough so that I could start my own blog.
I've gone from having a hard time with my program's blackboard technology to being able to create and maintain a blog called "Down and Out: Adventures in Literature. Landscape. Life."
The blog is about books, place, and life along the way. It has come out of my work with the Goucher College MFA program. I loved how the internship was structured so that I could work with the author, who is in Seattle, and get something really practical out of it that could help my work, too.
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