Hi guys!
I hope you are all doing well! In today's post, I am going to discuss my thoughts on my first year as an English literature student and how the COVID-19 virus had affected my routine and my learning experience. I will start off by saying that I have finished my first year about two weeks ago after I heard that I didn't need to take a resit. But for me, this year ended very weirdly. However, I have completed all my courses this year which means that I got my BSA, in the Netherlands, you need your BSA to be able to go through to the following years of your studies.
Okay, first I will walk you through my first year as a literature student. As you may know, I started my studies in September and the first period was really about figuring out what worked for me. Before this year I had taken a gap year, in which I didn't do anything study-related. This meant that I needed to find out how I learned best. But I think that only after period two I had figured this out. Honestly, from January to March were some of the busiest yet productive months of my life. I was finally getting into a workout routine that stuck, I had a new job where I worked around 15 hours per week and of course, I had to manage my school work. Even though these months were busy for me, I really enjoyed the routine I had set up and the results of my studies showed me that I was putting enough time into it.
But then, the coronavirus turned the world (my world) upside down. I am honest when I say that this has given me more than one breakdown. But that aside, suddenly everything stopped. This was at the end of my third period of school, so I had one week of 'online classes' before I had exams and deadlines. This week did not do much, the exams were altered to fit the at-home-style of testing and the last classes were cancelled with Powerpoints as replacements. But I wasn't that mad about it because at least I could still work and go to the gym. Until a week later, those too were closed and I had literally nothing to do anymore. Now, I, of course, felt powerless, yet I am still grateful that I nor anyone of my family and friends was affected by the virus.
When the break between my third and fourth period was over, I was notified that the last period would be fully online. Sigh. Honestly, the way my professors had designed this period was bad. No offence to them, they probably did their best in this weird situation. But, it was all but an active learning experience. What could have been interesting and fun courses were now boring and not really challenging. Of course, you could argue that this is nice because it is an easy way of getting high grades, but personally, I do not think that I remembered much of these courses, which is sad as they seemed very interesting. To give you an insight into how these online courses were structured. It was mostly self-study and a lot of reading, combined with weekly assignments that we didn't really do anything with except for handing them in. I ended these courses with 1 online exam, a project and an essay. I really missed an active classroom in which you share ideas or can easily ask questions. This was not an option, but it made me realise how important this is.
For those interested, this was the reading I did for my first year:
* Disgrace by J.M Coetzee
* The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh
* Beowulf by Unknown
* The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
* Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
* Hard Times by Charles Dickens
* To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
* Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
* The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday
* Ariel by Sylvia Plath
* The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
From this list, I really recommend Pride and Prejudice and The Fire Next Time but all are good in their own ways. I also read many many poems but I will not list them all, because that will take an entire day I think :)
Concluding, I think that this year was fun and challenging. I met new people, made new friends, discovered that I really am a literature nerd (and I am not complaining). I know now that I really like learning and talking about literature, but mostly to look through the eyes of those writers to understand what they were thinking in that time. I have made the right decision by studying English Literature and I hope that it will bring me to the dreams of my future.
Love,
Julia
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