Foreign Perspectives

Although I never thought the day would come when I’d be talking of completing my modern languages degree, I find myself on the final course of that at the moment.

That means that after six years I am in the position of looking around for something to do that doesn’t fall under the heading of “modern languages”. Now, whilst I’d like to keep the studies ticking over, I’m not really looking for anything heavy duty at the moment although that really doesn’t narrow down the field of subjects a great deal.

Purely out of lazyness, I’m limiting my searches to the courses that the Open University put out but perhaps “limiting” isn’t quite the word to apply here as the range is pretty staggering (no, this isn’t a commercial for them!).

I’d also like the course to finish before the summer next year as, all being well, I’ll be off to the graduation in September. And, I’d like to do something “different” which basically rules out another language.

At the moment, I’m thinking of:

1. World Archaeology, which covers getting on for 12,000 years over the course of 18 weeks and sounds fascinating but quite hard work and starts in September which is before my current course ends, so provisionally I’ve ruled it out for this year;
2. Engineering the Future, which sounds like a truly fascinating course too. It starts in October and runs to June but there’s an associated residential. Definitely in the running;
3. Rundblick: beginners’ German, starts in November but runs to the following October which is quite long and, of course, is “just” another language which provisionally rules it out;
4. Using Mathematics is a course that I’ll need to do in due course but doesn’t really fire me up at the moment, so it’s provisionally ruled out for this year;
5. Geology, doesn’t start ’til February which means that it runs over the (hoped for) graduation ceremony so provisionally gets ruled out; and
6. Exploring Psychology, starts the week before my final exam but is workable (though I’d like a little break). Unlike the above courses this one is a full credit course ie there’s more work to be done. However, it’s one that’s been on my “to do” list for a while now.

So which, if any, will it be? At the moment, I’d say that the archaeology, engineering and psychology courses are the front runners. Or, of course, I could just take a break 🙂