When I got my bachelor's degree, I decided for some reason that studying English history and Latin, with a bit of English lit thrown in for good measure, sounded like a good idea. I did have fun studying those things, and I learned a lot, too. And some of the things I learned, like the writing skills developed over three years of producing papers for demanding professors, have even proved helpful to me in my post-college existence. What it hasn't been helpful with, though, has been getting a job. For some strange reason, there's just not much call for conjugating irregular Latin verbs in the workforce, and prospective employers seem unimpressed with a degree that focused mainly on things that happened a thousand years ago or more. Weird, right???
Well, after a few uninspiring and less than satisfying jobs (including a delightful bout of unemployment), I finally got myself enrolled in a masters program in library science this past January. It's something I'd been meaning to do for a while, and I was looking forward to having some education on my resume that would help me get a job that I want. What I wasn't looking forward to, however, was the actual going to school part. In college, I loved listening to lectures and learning and forming friendships with my fellow students, but I (like every other student in the world, I'm sure) hated doing my homework. As I looked forward to two years of a distance, mostly-online masters program, it seemed to me it would be a big on work, and short on the fun parts of school. And I wasn't even taking interesting classes like history or English lit to make up for it.
Imagine my excitement, then, this last weekend when I realized that I was actually having a blast with all my classes. Yes, they are a lot of work, and yes, I still tend to procrastinate enough that I have to pull the occasional all-nighter, but despite all that, I'm having lots of fun. The courses are actually interesting, my fellow students are the smartest group of people I've been around in a long time, and my professors are (there's no other way to put this) awesome.
It all started to fall into place when I was finishing up a paper the night before class. I realized that the things I was writing about actually had some bearing on reality, and that all those theories and abstract concepts I'd been forcing myself to read translated into real-world, practical usefulness. The epiphanies continued throughout the class weekend, and by the end of the day, I was actually feeling excited to finish up my assignments for the semester, because the material was so interesting. And only some of the giddiness was due to sleep deprivation!
This state of excitement was admittedly a bit short lived -- it lasted right up until I started working on the pile of things I have left to do this week -- but it was great while it lasted. And the best part of all of it is that I'm not looking at the next two years as a joyless slog anymore. Maybe I'm not giddy and excited for everything that's coming, but I know it will be interesting at the very least, and I'm more motivated to get what I can out of it than I was a few weeks ago. That's progress, and I'll take it.
