Courses and Classes

Before embarking on this adventure into education, I spent about four to six months trying to figure out what I meant when I said I wanted a career change. I did countless online tests to get an overview of my personality (INFP), my transferrable skills, aptitudes, values, interests, dreams, visions and goals. At the end, it became clear to me that the things I have always loved best  have remained the same over the years: words, writing, reading, thinking, investigating, learning, teaching, counselling, organizing. So I figured that doing a basic BA degree, majoring in English studies and possibly something else, would be a very good starting place. Not only would I get a qualification, but I'd get to spend three or four years doing the things I loved most.

So for my first semester, I registered for two papers (as courses are known here). The first is an English paper called Past Masters, which is an introduction to some literary masterpieces from the past, from Chaucer (14th century) and the age of Shakespeare to the satirists of the eighteenth century. Hour-long lectures three times a week with a tutorial hour once a week. The lecture hall holds about 300 students, at a guess, but the tutorials are smaller - about 12 to 16 or so. We plunged straight into Malory's Morte D'Arthur, followed by Chaucer's The Miller's Tale. Both were read in the English of the period, which is vastly different to today's English, and it was incredibly interesting to see how some words had changed or evolved over time. We then went on to some poetry and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which I absolutely loved. The convolutions of the English language are endlessly fascinating! First assignment came due and I got a 'high B' which is probably about 75% or so. The other students are, on the whole, in their late teens but I have met two other mature students and I'm slowly getting to know them.

My second paper is both more and less demanding! Religious Studies 106: Prayer, Meditation, Trance and Ecstasy is an exploration into the ways in which spiritual practices alter consciousness. We study contemporary world cultures and see the influence of rituals, bodily postures, drugs and music and the focus is on the spiritual understandings that come not through doctrines, but rather through ways of living.  The structure is less demanding than English in that there's only one lecture a week, for two hours, and one tutorial every second week. But the preparatory readings require a lot of concentration and understanding, and we have to produce five short essays of about 900 to 1200 words every two to three weeks, followed by a final research essay of 2500 words at the end of term. The readings are mostly interesting but I found it hard sometimes to understand at first what exactly they were on about, or how they fitted into Religious Studies. Gradually I've come to realize that each offers a way of looking at religion (ie a theory of religion) as well as providing an overview of some kind of spiritual practice. Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I'm loving it more and more. Two essays done so far, graded at 8 and 9/10 respectively, so I think I must be doing something right.

The thing I'm finding trickiest to negotiate right now are the tutorials, especially the Reli one. I had fondly imagined that there would be lot of chatter and sharing of thoughts and ideas, but instead, most of the students sit there with their mouths shut and say nothing. Out of the other nineteen students, there's a girl who contributes a fair bit, and a guy who says the occasional very interesting thing, but mostly, when the tutor asks a question, it's me who ends up answering him. I cannot sit there and say nothing, especially if I know the answer or have a thought on the matter! It's making me feel very uncomfortable - and I feel bad for the tutuor too, when his remarks or questions are met with a deadly silence. But it also leaves me feeling like I'm showing everyone else up or sucking up or something. Very unpleasant and frustrating! Maybe he's a poor tutor in that he's not getting the class to engage much? I have no way of telling, as the only other tutor I've worked with is my English tutor, who is very young and very new to tutoring. He's warming up and improving no end, but the reli tuts are agonizing... which is a huge pity as the subject matter is fascinating.

Overall, though, I am absolutely loving being a student again, and especially being a student of subjects that I can embrace with gusto and enthusiasm!