From Helga;
How did Noem finish four years of college in a little more then a year?
Noem was sworn in January 2011. She says she juggled a full course load last spring (2011) while at the same time finding her way around DC and she finished her classes by the fall of 2011. Earned her degree by December 2011. “Kristi Noem who in December of 2011 received her college diploma while serving her first term in office.” Enquiring minds would like to know how a person earns 2 years of college credit from spring to fall of 2011 (6-7 months)? And at the same time being a full time congress woman (South Dakota’s only congress person) traveling back and forth from DC to SD and around to various states fund raising.
For now the real point is she says she went to college for two years, 1990-1992, so that means she had 2 years left before she could get a degree. Apparently it never dawned on her while she was running the farm, having children, and then getting elected to the SD legislature that she might finish her college degree. (I could be snarky and add racing around the state getting tons of tickets). So 20 years later when she gets elected to the US House she decides she needs that piece of paper? I wonder how the heck she can get 2 years of college credits in less then a year? The last Washington Post story says one way she earned her degree was to “rack up intern credits”.
According to local press, one way the South Dakota Republican earned her degree was to rack up “intern credits.†We’re pretty sure her interning experience was vastly different than that of most fresh-faced college kids — she probably didn’t have to fetch coffee for the boss or subsist on a diet of 25-cent-wing nights and pitchers of beer at the Capitol Lounge.
The Post also points out;
Noem, 40, dropped out of college when she was 22 to run the family farm after her father died. She took courses here and there but life — marriage, kids, business, politics — kept her from finishing until now.
How? “I did a lot of homework on flights,†she told us Wednesday. The freshman Republican juggled a full course load and her new congressional duties last spring, then finished up her classes this fall. Her staff only scheduled her at must-attend events at night and often heard her protest, “I have to work on this paper! It’s due tomorrow!†Noem was studying the Eastern European financial crisis while debating the U.S. debt ceiling. “I think it really benefited me as a person intellectually.â€
She gets elected as a US Congress woman and she gets credit for that, at least that is the way it looks to me. Too bad everyone else that works one or two jobs and goes to college at the same time doesn’t get credit for their jobs. Everyone else has to actually go to classes, take tests, pay for the classes with loans that she voted NO on because she thinks doubling the interest rate is just fine. It really just boils down to what classes did she take and how many credits did she get from those classes.
She says she went to Northern in Aberdeen, SDSU and Mount Marty in Watertown. Often times schools do not accept all the credits of other schools. So how many credits did she start with?
Representative Noem graduated from Hamlin High School in 1990 and has lived in the area her entire life. Kristi began her college education at Northern State, later transferring to SDSU and taking classes at Mount Marty in Watertown as well. The unexpected death of her father required Kristi to return to the family ranch full time. In recent years, Kristi has continued to pursue her degree in Political Science by taking classes at SDSU.
She is the only congress person of the state and she gets college credit as an intern. So how did she do it as a first term US House Rep and can other college students do that too? Who did she intern for, (certainly not herself), what papers, projects did she have to write for the internship, who graded them and who decided and approved how many credit hours she got for interning. If she got intern credits just because she’s a US House rep then she received selective treatment.