Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Anticlimatic

I forgot to mention that I am now done with classes. Forever. In a rather anticlimatic move, I discovered on Sunday that apparently my final class will not be having a final exam this week. As such, I did my final classwork about two weeks ago, when I actually turned in a problem set late (I had the due date remembered wrong). Apropos, I suppose.

Also, apparently this exam I'm trying to stay awake all day to work on is a "candidacy exam." It seems that I am not yet a PhD candidate, and somehow being a PhD candidate is different from having been admitted into the PhD program. Or something. I get the point of the exams, I do, but the language and the bureaucracy come across as forced and arcane. And buraeucratic.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might decide in middle age that you want to learn something new that one can only get from college classes. On the other hand, maybe by the time you're middle aged people will be able to strap on some sort of electronic helmet and have knowledge installed. Who knows. (this could be boiled down to the cliche about never say never). But in the meantime, enjoy the feeling. Have a symbolic bonfire of your #2 pencils.

mollishka said...

Yes, but: there is a big difference between classes taken voluntarily "for fun" and required classes, and there is a big difference between taking classes when it's all you've been doing for 20 years and taking classes when you haven't for 20 years. I also suspect that if I do ever take classes again, they won't be in physics or astronomy... I'm supposed to be able to learn those things outside a classroom setting now.