World traveler Amy Woodcock finds UNK from 6,000 miles away, thanks to unknown alumnus

While many students are counting down until the spring 2023 commencement ceremony, preparing their outfits for the big day, or even decorating a cap with an inspirational quote; you won’t find Amy Woodcock, a spring graduate from the English M.A. program, doing any of that.  
 
Woodcock will be approximately 6,000 miles away from campus on graduation day, as she currently resides in Sasebo, Japan, where she teaches 9th and 11th grade English for the US Department of Defense Education System at the US Naval base, U.S. Fleet Activities Sasebo. 
 
During her undergraduate career at Washington University, Woodcock studied Secondary Education: English and student taught in Heidelberg, Germany. Right after graduation she moved to Seoul, South Korea where she taught at an afterschool program, until she landed a full-time teaching position with the US Department of Defense Education Activity in South Korea.  
 
“With the Department of Defense program, there's always been a transfer program. That's how I moved from Korea to Japan. I've been in Asia now for ten years, so it would be great to maybe make it to Europe or to go somewhere else. It’s the best-case scenario because I get to explore and travel,” Woodcock said. 
 
Travel has always been a part of Woodcock’s life; you could even say she was born into it.  
 
“I grew up traveling a lot, because my dad was in the Army,” Woodcock explained. “My dad was stationed in Japan, and that is where my parents met. My mom is Japanese, and I was born in Japan, but it was like a year later we moved. I have lived in three other countries outside of the United States. But I've traveled to lots of places.”  
 
Woodcock always had an interest in pursuing a master’s degree but struggled with what that would look like due to not enjoying online courses and living abroad. 

“I'll be honest, I usually hate online school,” Woodcock admitted. “A lot of my colleagues were taking some kind of master's program. It always felt like from what they were doing, they would submit a paper to the universe and then they would get something back that may or may not have feedback on it and maybe they had to rewrite it. I think that was my impression of what was going to happen with an online school system.” 
 
Woodcock also was looking for an English master’s program that did not focus on literature. 
 
“A lot of online programs tended to all be in literature. I really didn’t want to get my degree in literature, specifically. I didn't really know what other options there were,” Woodcock said. 
 
That is until she was scrolling through Facebook. Woodcock teaches an AP language and composition class and is part of an AP Facebook group. It was through an unknown member of this group that Woodcock first heard of UNK. 
 
“I don't know this person, there's like thousands of people in this group, but someone had posted that they had gotten their degree through UNK in composition and rhetoric and how great it was,” Woodcock said. “She was really specific that UNK had four different English routes that you could go through, and she specified that the language and rhetoric route was great.” 
 
UNK’s online English M.A. program has focus areas in Creative Writing; Childhood and Youth Studies; Composition, Rhetoric, and Language; and Literature. This allows students to customize their courses on topics that will benefit their educational and career goals. 
 
“She had also mentioned that the specificity of the rhetoric and language route that UNK offered made her resume look better when she had applied for a community college job,” Woodcock continued about the anonymous Facebook reviewer. “They really liked that it wasn't just a master's in English, but that it was in rhetoric and comp. She did an excellent job selling UNK!” 
 
After seeing the post, Woodcock did some additional research via the UNK website.  
 
“She didn't even talk price! After that I started looking at prices and I was like, ‘Wow, UNK is actually a pretty affordable school.’ To me, it was you can get a master's in English, and it didn't have to be literature, apparently that the professors were awesome, and that it would boost my resume,” Woodcock said.  
 
Those three reasons are what lead Woodcock to apply for UNK’s online English M.A. with an emphasis in rhetoric, composition, and language.  
 
As for Woodcock’s hatred for online courses, she now has a new mindset regarding online education. 
 
“Being abroad and knowing that my time zone was going to be an issue, I never expected to be able to meet with a professor,” Woodcock said. “It's a really important step to actually meet with students to talk about their papers and to make sure that everything's going on track. I was really impressed with the relationships and the actual interaction with the professors.”

Beyond gaining a deep connection with her professors nearly 6,000 miles away, Woodcock says the courses she took truly impacted her and her classroom. 
 
“I ended up taking a unit of the inquiry that I created in her class, and I applied it to my students the following fall,” Woodcock said about a course she took with Dr. Janet Graham. “I felt like I was actually improving in my skills, and I was learning something new. The master’s program didn’t feel like just a piece of paper that was going to get me a raise." 
 
On the eve of graduating, Woodcock still isn’t sure who made the post that led to her earning her master’s, but she would love to find her someday to thank her: “I don't think I would have ever picked the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I need to find her name because she clearly really shaped this decision!” 
 
Many online UNK graduates are also in Woodcock’s situation of not being able to physically attend UNK’s spring 2023 commencement due to distance or other factors. UNK Graduate Studies and Academic Outreach understands this and livestreams the entire commencement to allow all students the opportunity to participate and celebrate their graduation wherever they are in the world.