Hello September
Last week college courses started back up and each year I’m wishing I’m being one of those students going back. I don’t think I would thrive in a standard in-person classroom with freshmen right out of high school, so I would opt for evening or even fully online classes with some older students. However, while I’m still interested in many fields of study, from getting my Masters in Tourism, studying law, or (art) history to English language & literature there are study and carrier choices that don’t fit my personality. As an introvert I dread making phone calls to strangers, interviewing someone (even a family member), or working in a group. I’m also not ad rem enough to come up with a good reply in a debate, I need to be able to let the words of the opposite site sink in before I can reply. Which wouldn’t do me any good as a lawyer. Now I have a bachelor’s degree in tourism and I think that if I was born in the USA or Great Britain I think I would have gotten a Bachelor in English language & literature. I love to read and while it may not always be great literature at the moment a lot of those works are still on my to-be-read list, for example, “The Great Gatsby” or “Catcher in the Rye”.
Over the years I attempted some official college courses, combined with a full-time job. While on some courses I got better grades than when I was a full-time student I never quite managed to find the right course balance or the course work wasn’t quite up my alley and resulted in procrastination leading to not getting the degree.
Each time by the end of August I get a college version of spring fever and I want to start something new to learn. This term I started with a free course on “Coursera.org”: Learning how to learn. I love that you can audit courses on this website without it costing you anything or not that much. Other websites I like to check for fun or interesting courses are “Alison.com” or “EdX.org”.
These courses can be further development in my current field just to see how much I remember and learn something new, or something different like nutrition. We don’t have to take an SAT test, but in preparation for a possible course in English language and literature, this will certainly be interesting. So maybe I purchase some SAT prep materials.
During Covid-19, I purchased a Microsoft office course, which will be next on my lesson plan. As I’m very bad at taking (lecture) notes, I can’t seem to distinguish the small things from the big picture, I’m thinking of following a course in Stenography as well. That way I will probably need to make notes from my notes which may not be that efficient but I get more time to find the most important things from the lecture without forgetting some examples as well.
Another big appeal of going back to school for me is the stationary I like all the pens and notebooks. So also this year I purchased a couple of new pen sets and some notebooks to “play around” with. If you are interested in knowing which pens and paper I purchased you find the links to amazon next. (No affiliated links, I also paid for all products)
- Arteza gel pens: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B084HCQWHP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 – Unfortunately they bleed through the paper a bit depending the paper you use
- mechanical pencil: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B076ZPCJ6K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- uni-ball eye: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B081JWX4WH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 also these bleed a bit on
- BIC intensity: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B01N3QHP9E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 – they are very fine points and think they are perfect if you want to color in very detailed designs, but personally I don’t like how they sit on my fingers when writing
- Stabilo Sensor F: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B01LX7GCEZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 – the same fine point as the BIC intensity but they write more pleasant in my opinion
- Pilot super grip G: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B07J4MCZ8P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s04?ie=UTF8&psc=1 – Perfect to use for quick notes, regular ballpoint pen so no bleeding on the back of a page but the texture of the page may be raised a bit depending on how hard you press on the page
- Oxford A4 course block: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B091FWJH7P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1 – lately I made more notes on my IPad or use Happy Notes (https://thehappyplanner.com/) so I forgot how big A4 was in comparison to the former
When in high school and the early days in college we had “commercial grid” paper. Which is functional for most subjects, except if you needed to draw a graph of some kind. I never understood the appeal of ruled or college ruled paper. Probably because I write rather small, so there was a lot of blank space on the pages, and you always needed a ruler to get your margin straight. Hence at the moment, I swear by dot grid paper. If I want or need to write small I can use every line, no need for a ruler if you want margins or need to draw a graph. While watching back-to-school supply haul videos on youtube I came across a website with Japanese stationery. Let’s just say I’m glad I don’t have one of those near me and don’t want to pay all the shipping fees and taxes, otherwise I would be broke. But for the ones that do, the site is jetpens.com.
If the stars align and I have enough money to live without working and still have extra money, online courses from Open University or a foreign accredited college or university are expensive, I probably would be a perpetual student.
What is a course that you would like to study or which degree would you still like to obtain?
