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Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
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Further Education

 
 
Axolotl
14:30 / 15.08.05
I am thinking of signing up for some further education courses and was wondering if anyone had any comments or anecdotes about FE, either positive or negative.
I am thinking of signing up for a russian language course, in the hope that doing so will finally get me beyond the yes, no, my name is stage that I have been stuck in for years. There's also a couple of computer courses that interest me, but I might see if my work will pay for them before signing up.
 
 
Ariadne
14:55 / 15.08.05
I'm a bit of a fan of further education. I did two years of French evening classes in London, and loved them - loved the classes, the homework, and the fact they brought my French back to, and beyond, where it was when I left Uni hundreds of years ago.

It's fun to learn something, though you do have to be quite determined - when the night of the class comes around you never really want to go. But it's always good when you get there - in my experience, anyway. And I'm a swot, so always did my homework, and was shocked when other people didn't! But I think doing work outside of the class is important if you actually want to learn.

Last year I did an evening class in bike maintenance and that was great too - completely different to sitting doing role play. It was a real hands-on course, and the people were a laugh, so I looked forward to that each week.

I did try learning Chinese from tapes last year, but I'm not good at making myself do it without the structure of a class. So I'm looking for one - and Loomis and I are also talking about doing Italian.

Anyway, the upshot of all that ramble is that yes, I think you should do the classes - night school rocks.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
22:03 / 15.08.05
I started a night class in Danish once and lasted a fortnight. What was I thinking?

Nevertheless, still a fan of F.E. Did three vocational courses with a bare minimum of study days off work and a huge amount of homework on Summer evenings when every else was down the pub. All worth it though, got me into a whole new line of work, but tough on top of a full working week.

I had severe problems disciplining myself to do the work. My last submission for a postgraduate course was such a bitch that it took over my life to an absurd degree. I got a phone call to say my dad had been rushed intio hospital and, I'm ashamed to say, I postponed going to see him till the next day because I had to get that last piece of written work in. Panic, wrought of procrastination. It got a distinction though. And my dad was fine.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:21 / 15.08.05
I did an FE night class for my Art History 'A' level in my gap year and I really enjoyed it. To be surrounded by people who actually wanted to learn about the subject and weren't there because they had to be was fantastic and it was fun. I really didn't think it was going to be but to sit there and just examine the work in such a casual way... I learnt a lot just from listening to other people speak.