What Next?

As I get near to the end of my OU course, and so at the same time the end of my degree, I'm starting to think about what to do next.

For the last couple of years my plan has been to go on and study Latin with the Open University. Mainly because I loved the Linguistics courses that I did and two of the languages which fascinated me most were two which I'd never studied before, Old English and Latin. As the OU doesn't have an Old English course Latin seemed like the next logical one to go for.

Except that plan recently went out the window when I discovered that they've finished the course for the Level 2 Latin for the time being. Periodically the OU withdraws courses so that they can be revised and updated. When I last looked it appeared that a new version of it would be available around October 2015, although I can't even find that now.

So I have a choice.

My first thought was to take a year out. I'll finish this course in June (when I submit my ECA) and all being well I'll be ready to graduate come August. I'd then have just over a year to take a nice long break, read lots of books that I want to read, knit whatever I want to, play computer games and all those other things I often don't get to do because I've always got a deadline.

But then I worry that if I do that, maybe I won't actually get to start back up again. I'm sure I wouldn't forget to register, but what if I did. Or I decided I was having too much fun to bother to register. And what would I actually do with that free time. I mean, I enjoy the summer break when I'm not studying, but I start to get a bit antsy towards the end of it because I've played all the computer games, my fingers are sore from knitting and I've read everything I feel like reading.

I've been in some form of education continually since I was four and a half and I guess I'm kind of institutionalised for it. I have this weird desire to constantly be learning something new!

So the other option is to study something else, and do the Latin later.

And now I'm considering my other options. There's a Reading Classical Greek course which I've looked at. My one issue with that is that it looks like there's a lot of my old nemesis, philosophy, involved there. As interesting as I think that might be, I'm not sure I want to do that to myself. I did French and German at school and I'm in no hurry to pick those back up again, Spanish or Italian might be fun, but again, I'm not sure, I'd need to do an introduction course for those.

My plan has been to do an Open Degree, just picking courses that appeal to me, rather than for any particular outcome. I'm thinking I might do Advanced Creative Writing at some point, but I don't want to go straight into Creative Writing, so I'm leaning towards some sort of Sociology type courses.

Right now Child Development is coming out on top. I think there's a fair bit of this that I would've already covered when I was at university, which would make it a nice gentle start to a new degree. And it might inspire me to go on to some other Social Sciences courses.

At least I've got a few months to go before I make up my mind for definite.