Foreign Perspectives

As usual, the last few days before an exam are a peculiar mix of panic cramming and looking forwards to the courses coming up.

The ED209 exam is a little peculiar in that of the three questions on the paper, we’ve already been given one (it ain’t as easy as that sounds!) which means that we’ve “only” to choose two more from the six on offer on the day. Unfortunately, it’s not a straight 2 from 6 as you’ve to answer one question on two of the three books on the course.

I find that the seen question is throwing something of a wobbler with my revision. The idea is that you basically treat that question as though it were the seventh assignment which is fine, except that it means you’ve to try and learn off the text of the answer so that you can write it out on the day which seems a bit daft. Not only that, but you’ve to write it, not type it as with the other assignments which also introduces the problem that you need to work out just how much you can write in about an hour.

Slightly odd at this point is that I’ll be branching off into a number of biology courses for a while and leaving the psychology behind for a bit. What’s coming up right away is the Human Biology course (SK277) which looks really interesting and, so far, relatively doable despite it being my first biology course in a very long time indeed. That’ll be followed by Biological Psychology (SD226) which looks like an interesting mix of biology and psychology. Then there’s the summer school: Investigative Biology (SXR270) to round out the coming year.

After that it’s the usual hazy plan at the moment. In theory, I should be doing Exploring Psychology in October but if the biology courses turn out to be as interesting as they appear to be from this distance then I’m thinking of continuing on with Infectious Disease (S320) and its residential, Molecular Basis of Human Disease (SXR376). Possibilities following that include another sequence of biology courses in the form of a new one starting that October, followed by Molecular and Cell Biology (S377) and finally Plants, Pigments and Light (SXR376) if it gets the rumoured extention in its life. And then it would be back into the psychology. But we’ll see.