Tonight has been devoted to deciding which paper to take this semester. Just like with fitness and fatloss, my degree is a longterm project and I can only really get through three or four papers a year. My plan in the next few years is to work less and get through the study a bit quicker, but for now it's just a matter of doing what I can, when I can. I think it's a sort of family tradition. My Uncle finished his degree in his 40's and my mother is still studying. My sister is four papers from being finished and she is nearly 35.
The star academic in our family is my cousin Asher, whom has started his Masters of Maori Visual Arts. Although I am very proud of him, it's not exactly like he gets a lot of family kudos for his efforts. That's because the mature members of the family don't really think that an arts degree is a serious thing, it's not a meal ticket degree. Everybody wants art, music, literature but they don't want any fledgling artists, musicians or writers in their family causing worry by swanning about being all arty and outrageous :-/
Massey don't make it easy to plan a degree. Here is my degree outline:
you must pass at least 360 credits
you must include at least 75 credits at 300 level
you may not include more than 165 credits at 100 level
at least 300 credits must come from Schedules A and B
at least 90 credits must be selected from Science papers (prefixes 121, 122, 123, 124, 141, 151, 158, 161, 162, 194, 203, 214, or 234) in Schedules A and B
at least 90 credits must be selected from Social Sciences papers (prefixes 131, 132, 139, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 175, 176, 177, 179, 209 or 250, or paper 119.155 or 119.177) in Schedules A and B.
And, that's before you even get to the requirements of a major. I have settled on a paper that looks into the healing systems of China, India and 'The West'. I'm hoping this will cover some things I have looked into previously so that I can piggyback my new learning onto some pre-existing knowledge. I just noticed that it's a 'no exam' paper. This could be a good thing, or it could mean that the course is a 'don't come up for air' sort of program. See you in November?
sounds like a lot of work! different from the U.S. system. what is your degree going to be in?
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle, it's Health Science with a Psychology major. I persistently fantasise about chucking it all in and doing a creative arts degree, but then I find myself reading health books and articles anyway and figure I'd might as well be putting my obsession to good use.
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