Linguistics is like crazy word math, and I think I've been going about this whole higher ed thing all wrong up until now: I should be refining, not enhancing. Getting a Master's in literature, or writing (like I had been doing at LIU) was not the way to go, as it was building on vague skills that I'd accrued at college, and in which I was confident. Graduate school should kick your butt, not make you feel good.
Linguistics, by contrast, explores language on a level that I understand and is interesting, but is challenging in ways I hadn't anticipated. I'm taking a Semantics intro class right now (technically as a nonmatriculated student) and it's all about logic, and proofs, and meaning, and what things mean in other worlds, and how we can account for that using language...
It also happens to dovetail quite nicely with my job, which I love and hope to continue doing. I also hope that they will, ahem, appreciate my efforts in some way or another eventually...
Another ridiculous perq: the Graduate Center is located in literally the same building as Oxford, reducing my school commute from 45 minutes each way (almost 5 hours/week) to practically nil. I've just earned myself a better, cheaper school; a shorter commute; and more than 10 hours of free time each week. This is the definition of improving one's quality of life.
I'd applied to the Graduate Center back in December, and have been shaking hands and attending lectures and scheduling meetings and revising essays nonstop since then -- and it's a real creature comfort knowing that hard work does, sometimes, pay off. Or, at least this experience has given me the impression that it does. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
1 comment:
Congratulations Rach!!!!! I'm so excited for you!
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