Daily Lobo: What was your first degree from UNM?
Candice Welhausen: A B.A. in communication and journalism.
DL: And now you've come back for a Ph.D.?
CW: Yes, I have a master's in English and professional writing, and I'm finishing my Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition, which is teaching writing and the study of argument.
DL: Are you teaching any classes on campus?
CW: Right now I teach 290, introduction to professional writing. I've also taught technical writing, English 219. I teach that a lot, and 101 and 102.
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DL: Which do you find most challenging to teach and why?
CW: 101. 101 is the hardest one to teach, because you have to cover so many different types of skills, and it's challenging to cover - I think it's challenging to cover the different kind of core writing skills that students need to help them be successful and make it interesting.
DL: What do you plan to do after you get your Ph.D.?
CW: After I graduate I will be looking for a full-time academic position as a professor.
DL: What do you like best about teaching?
CW: I really like working with students. Working with students is very rewarding, and I like helping students achieve their academic goals and be successful. This class (introduction to professional writing) is a really good class because people want to - it's for majors, and so they're really interested in working on their writing and getting a degree in writing, and so this class has been really good so far because the level of student engagement and working with students on that level is very rewarding.
DL: What irks you the most about teaching?
CW: The paperwork can sometimes be overwhelming, but I enjoy being in the classroom. I enjoy working with students, and that outweighs it, I think.
DL: I often wonder how teachers have time to look at all the papers they have us do.
CW: Yeah, it's hard. I mean, you want to look at it, but at the same time it's hard to make all the time to look at it as carefully as you might want to. I wish I had more time to spend looking at stuff in a detailed manner.
DL: What do you do when you're not working?
CW: I used to like to do photography. I don't really get to do that much anymore. I love photography, but I don't have time for it. And I like to ski. I like to go hiking. I like outdoor types of stuff.
DL: What's one thing you'd like to tell all students?
CW: Work on your writing skills. Writing skills are important for your career, regardless of what career you're going to be in, and probably a lot of students don't realize that they're going to be doing some type of writing in their future career and it's important to develop those skills and work on those skills now. I think it's more important than people probably realize.
