Sunday, October 28, 2012

Ummm...Like drinking from a fire hose.

My new friend, Fahd, offered me a very kind piece of advice..."You could have a few entries that reflected on life as a student at Cambridge." At first in my head, I thought, "Isn't that what I'm doing?" However, then we talked more and I realized he was referring to the academic life.

The only way I can describe it is....academic life at Cambridge is like drinking from a fire hose.


I realize, I just used a metaphor, which are considered to be full of generalisations and that lead to erroneous assumptions. But I promise this generalisation is the most true one EVER! 

I am reading for a Masters of Philosophy in Education (thematic route: Perspectives on Inclusive and Special Education).  I attend between 14-18 hours of lecture a week. I have three strands of classes:
1) Research Methods 
2) Perspectives in Education aka: Deep theory that has yet to mention the words child, school, education...but the homework is interesting!!! 
3) Perspectives on Inclusive and Special Education (PISE)
Faculty of Education (dark whenever I leave!)
The strangest part is being a student after being a teacher. I'll find myself doing something and then remember I told my students to never do this! For instance, doing reading without keeping notes/highlighting, or studying for hours without breaks....or just skipping words you don't know.

Also, it's been a struggle having diabetes and going to University. I was already a teacher when I was diagnosed. The thing is exericse brings down blood sugar levels....certain types of exericse bring it down faster. However, I have found that the thing that drops my blood sugar the fastest is solid 3  hour lectures....or personal study blocks. So I've been using up all my emergency glucose....I'm still trying to figure it out!!!!
There's the library! Kinda an odd view...sorry!

My classes are far away...about a 43 min bike ride in light traffic....55 min in busy traffic. The buildings are very new. And the class sizes are 60-70 in my Research and Perspective classes. My Special Education classes are only 20!!! And the education faculty library is full of the most incredible and bubbly librarians ever!

2 comments:

  1. That sounds like quite a work-out you had - I hope you had a nice deep sleep after that. I guess that is a win-win for you. But then you tipped? Are you kidding? That is crazy. Well I'm glad that you have meet so many nice people and you are so stimulated with the place. I actually didn't think Cambridge would be very stimulating (just joking!).
    Take care, Darlene

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  2. Oh, I forgot...... Happy Halloween! I bet there are a few ghosts in the old colleges. Boy would they have stories to tell! Darlene

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