To think that my last post (yes, it was quite a while ago!) was on graduation and embarking on my Honours programme!
Last Friday was the last day of lessons. For majority of my fellow UQ schoolmates, this week is study break and the coming Saturday would mark the start of the exam period. Not so for me. I submitted my final assignment for the coursework I did this semester on Wednesday, and went for my last day of coursework class on Friday. Honours students in my School don't have to do exams (thank goodness, I've done enough exams to last a lifetime!), so while most of my schoolmates are busy studying hard for their upcoming exams now, I've been indulging in some much-deserved relaxation over the past few days.
That's the thing about being an Honours student and not an undergraduate any more: your academic schedule is pretty different. This was one aspect of Honours that I found a little difficult to adjust to when I first started in July this year. My academic schedule is also different in the sense that I do a lot more independent study. The main feature of the Honours programme is the thesis, which I begin working on from the start of my programme and submit about a year later. Save for the occasional feedback sessions on thesis writing organized by my school, the thesis writing process is driven by me. It is up to me to decide how much time and commitment I want to put into my thesis, how often I want to work on it, seek advice and help if needed, what I want to write about, do my own research etc. Aside from writing my thesis, I also have to do two compulsory Honours courseworks, one for each semester. The coursework takes up about 2 hours of my week, which means the rest of the week is entirely up to me to decide how to spend it. This was pretty new to me at the beginning, because for all my life I was used to having lessons planned for me to attend most weekdays. Now, I am "my own boss", as my thesis supervisor likes to tell me.
Oh well, now that half my Honours programme has been completed, I'm pretty used to this kind of independent study. I also think more like an Honours student, in the sense that I am aware of the wider debates and contexts of my discipline. All thanks to the compulsory course I had to do this semester, which is concerned with the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. It's mind-bogglingly deep, complex and challenging, and occasionally a source of frustration because I was never good with philosophical and abstract concepts to begin with. At the end of it, however, I was proud to be able to go up to my lecturer and tell him that though I still did not understand the nuances and details of some of the debates we learnt about, I did understand the gist of the course as a whole and could see how it was relevant and useful to myself as an Honours student and the thesis I am working on.
All that's left for now is to focus on my Honours thesis this summer holidays. I have not yet started the 17 000 word journey actually (yep, that's how long my thesis is supposed to be!), because I first had to submit a detailed Statement of Intent and get feedback on it. I've got my feedback already and my supervisor reckons that I'm ready to begin writing. Now if I could just muster the willpower to get started and stop myself from sinking too deeply into the holiday mood ......
