Back to School

Terri wanted me to expand on my return to studying, so here goes.

About 5 years ago I was offered the chance of doing a degree at the university that I work at, free of charge, with some classes in normal term time, some in the summer. This sounded like a great idea, so I signed up.

I did a preliminary short course to get me started, and then started studying properly. Everything was going well, my marks were great, and I was thoroughly enjoying it.

Then my eldest daughter was taken ill. I soldiered on with the classes, but my out of class study time was severely reduced with everything else going on. I finished the first year, scraping through my exams with no effective revision, a couple of weeks before we lost our daughter. Summer classes were out of the question, so I decided to take a year out to see how things went. By the following summer I was still not prepared to return to classes on the anniversary of my daughter's death, so I just let it slide.

Then I got talking to my head of department, who is the greatest boss you could ever want. Realizing that I was never going to be happy returning to summer classes he suggested that I switch over to just doing classes during the normal academic year, September to June. It will take me longer to finish, but at least I will be working on it.

So here I am, starting Year 2 in a class full of 19-20 year olds. being taught by someone that I have been working with for the last 17 years. Interesting, to say the least!

So wish me luck! I am going to need it, especially with those darned exams. I am too old for cramming...