Starting again

I took my first step into returning to study yesterday: I filled in the enrolment forms, and put in my application to have my fees partially waived (a perk of working for the university).

So, all going according to plan, in February next year I'll be taking a course in Linguistic Theory, the second of four papers I need to complete to add (Hons) to the BA at the end of my name.

I'm feeling a bit nervous - after a year away from study, I can't remember how I ever found enough time to keep up with all the reading and writing and thinking needed, all while working full time.  Especially as my job is a lot busier now than it was a year ago, so there won't be the same chances to sneak in a bit of studying during the quiet periods.  Adding to my nervousness is the decision by the Linguistics department to compress their previously full-year courses into single semesters, which presumably means we'll be expected to do as much work as the full-year course, but in half the time.  (Though I suppose on the plus side it means I'll only have to cope with the stress for half as long...)

But despite my worries, I'm really looking forward to the course.  Though the topic sounds a bit dry, I think it will turn out to be one of those courses that you can make as interesting as you want depending on which aspects you choose to focus on, and it's definitely going to be an incredibly useful grounding for the future study I want to do.

Plus, after a year of not having to think too deeply about anything, it's exciting to think about really getting my teeth into a topic again!

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So, what are your plans for study for 2014?  Anything exciting coming up?  Let me know in the comments below.

Counting down

Just over a week to go until term starts, and I've finally completed my enrolment.  It took a lot longer than usual, partly because I couldn't make up my mind which course I wanted to take, and partly because I'd applied for a fee waiver (because I work at the university) and the manager who could approve it was away on leave.  But I finally made a decision (I'm taking a paper on sociolinguistics which looks like it will have some interesting intersections with the area of linguistics which I'm really interested in, syntax), and my fee waiver was approved (yay!), so now I'm officially enrolled and can get properly excited about the year to come.

I love this time before a course starts, when it's all anticipation.  I read the course outline obsessively, fill in all the lecture times in my diary, and try to get as much pre-reading done as I can so I'm all ready for the first lecture (one of the great advantages of studying in the 21st century is online course materials - no more having to wait until the first lecture to collect a reading packet).  I'm feeling a bit cheated though - there's no textbook for this course, so I miss out on one of the great joys of starting a new paper: bringing a brand new book home from the bookshop and browsing it in anticipation of what's to come.

Maybe I'm just weird, but I always find it so exciting to browse through a textbook that's full of completely incomprehensible material, knowing that in just a few months it will all make sense to me, and that the horizons of my knowledge will have been expanded yet again.  It's all so mysterious when you first dip into it, full of new ideas expressed in a language you haven't quite grasped yet (I'm sure that at least 50% of understanding any subject is just learning the jargon), and you're about to be guided through that maze and come out the other side knowing so much more.  Why wouldn't that be exciting?

But no textbook this year, just lots of journal articles to read.  Oh well, maybe I'll make an excuse to visit the bookshop anyway (I'm sure I must need some new stationery), just to breathe in the atmosphere of pure knowledge just waiting to be explored.