The empty page anxiety has hit.
My laptop is set up with new file spaces, new notebooks and pens (Christmas gifts!) are laid out, and I have a whole month before I start my first Open University module begins. I haven't even received access to my module website yet.
I will be starting Y034 this February. Somehow, this is both the biggest leap forwards and simultaneously backwards that I have taken in my academic career. Up until a couple of years ago, I was following a path of STEM education. I would go so far as to say that I had devoted my youth to this. In the end, I left my time at a "brick" university with nothing to show for my efforts except excessive alcohol use and a handful of chronic illnesses, in 2023.
So here we go again.
A change of path, the freshest of new starts. A desperation to learn how I can use the capacity I now have to make a contribution to society.
This is all I am asking of myself. I am not registering on a degree, yet. Not least because I have yet to figure out whether I will be able to fund this. My longer-term goal planning involves enrolling myself on a degree programme in Social Sciences. I think I would be following the Sociology path, but I am leaving that entirely up to future decision making. I've been studying a few Open Learn courses and found myself gravitating towards those falling within religious studies. I have never studied psychology before - maybe that will pique my interest. I am prioritising giving myself the freedom to explore all possible paths before I set my heart to anything.
I think it would help if I knew what I really wanted to use a degree for. I'm not starting this looking ahead to some sort of career path. It would be devastating to do so, I do not know when I will get on top of my health enough to be able to hold down any sort of job. I just know that I like thinking, and I like writing. I would like to be able to contribute to society in some way. I often find myself feeling very disconnected from society, in the long stretches of days when I barely do more than leave my bed. Perhaps all I want to do by studying society is be more active in my participation as a mere onlooker. I enjoy thinking, just as I enjoy writing when I find ways to scrawl words into tangible existence.
Ah well, at least I will have plenty of opportunities for reflective practice over the coming weeks, months, or even years.
The first page is written now, and published. Perhaps for posterity more than anything else. Whatever comes next, I did this. I tried.
Onwards.
Jasper
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