Oh, What a Semester

I’m done! Christmas break, here I come! Apologies to all of you who are still in the midst of the exam-time bubble, but with the first half of my final year finally at a close, I’m feeling pretty good!

This semester I didn’t have any exams, in fact I haven’t for a while. My English degree has mostly been full of coursework in the form of long essays. With two deadlines this week, I actually found myself wishing for an exam instead of my weeks worth of note-taking, reading and typing. Over the past twelve weeks I have had four pieces of coursework which may or may not sound like a lot depending on what you are used to. I’ve definitely had semesters with more deadlines, but this doesn’t mean that this one has been in any way easy. Truthfully, it has been one of my favourite combination of classes so far and I’m actually feeling pretty nostalgic now all my work has been handed in and I won’t get to discuss my reading list anymore. I have a habit of always feeling really motivated to learn right when the semester is finished, which is a tad inconvenient (where was this enthusiasm a couple of weeks ago when I could have had a head-start on these deadlines??). The biggest struggle, for me anyway, is always when a ‘Research Essay’ is required- when we are entrusted to formulate our own independent research topic and write our essay on this. Sounds like fun and the perfect opportunity to study what interests you, but in reality is pretty difficult to gauge scope and stick to the one idea without going off on a tangent. My research topic for my Virginia Woolf module was ‘Moments of Being and the Failure of Language within The Waves‘ which sounds a little pretentious and WTF but was actually really enjoyable! (Also, The Waves has become one of my all-time favourite books).

Thankfully there was some time for fun throughout the semester too- events in and around Dundee and as part of uni life!