Financial & Travel Musings

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Somewhat to my amazement I find myself doing the final course for my modern languages degree at the moment.

I still haven’t gotten used to being able to use a phrase like “my modern languages degree” and even now, nearly four years after getting the Diploma in French I still have it sitting on the desk and look at it now and again in case it was all a dream!

But, ’tis nearing an end now and I find myself thinking about what to do next (on the optimistic assumption that I’ll actually pass the final course!).

So what’ll it be? Well, I had briefly toyed with doing the English Language & Literature degree next but having looked at the courses entailed in that and had a stab at reading some of the novels, I’ve abandoned that plan. English just ain’t my subject although ironically I’ve been getting the highest marks ever on the English language course (U211) which represents the final one needed for the modern languages degree.

To help with looking after juniors 1 & 2, I was thinking of Child Development (ED209) and am currently reading some of the books recommended for that course. Seems readable enough though I’m not really sure that psychology is my kind of subject and it also recommends that you do the Exploring Psychology (DSE212) first which is one of the October start date courses and therefore means either no break ’til next June or alternatively a break ’til October next year.

On ‘tother hand I quite fancy something entirely different namely Physics which starts with S104 in January/February. That’s been on my “must get around to doing” list since way back in the mid 1980s. I have to confess to being one of those people who compulsively pick up a prospectus every year and it was 15 prospecti later that I started on what’s become the modern languages degree. Is anyone else that bad? I read right through every one that I picked up and marked oodles of courses that I’d quite like to do but actually ended up doing one of the courses that I never ever expected to do ie French.

Junior 1 reckons that I should run with the physics degree (aka physical sciences) as this will mean that I’ll be able to discover time travel and build a TARDIS. Personally, I think that I’d more than likely need to run with the 2+3 MPhys that they do in conjunction with the University of Lancashire to do that or possibly, if I got totally carried away, the PhD. Though you might laugh at junior 1’s reason, funnily enough the Uni of Lancs actually has been sending students off to CERN where they repudedly did what’s potentially the first experiment in time travel last May (no, really, they did - look it up if you don’t believe me!). Still, stranger things have happened - who’d have expected a civil servant to come up with the theory of relativity?

I also quite fancy doing the new world archaeology course but it sounds a teensy bit much for this year as it’s 60 points workload but over half the time ie ’tis a 30 pointer over four months or so starting September. I do have it down on my “masterplan” though and will fit it in eventually as it sounds really interesting.

Whilst I was having my annual browse of the prospectus this year (yes, I know, it would be much more environmentally friendly to browse it online but you can’t really do that curled up in bed, can you?) I came across Engineering the Future has the plus points that it’s only 30 points, counts towards the physics degree and sounds both relatively easy and dead interesting. What I worry about with that one is that it’s also the jumping off point for a BEng and I find that I feel compelled to follow things through which, of course, is how “I’d just like to be able to speak some French” resulted in me finding myself on the final course for a modern languages degree six years later.

The final dead easy option seems to be MST121 which I’ll need to do at some point for the physics degree. Only 30 points and no exam but unfortunately it’s also an easy way to switch from Feb start to Oct start courses so I was planning on saving that up until I need to make the switch for L2 physics. Yeah, I know, I could overlap courses but I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories about clashing TMAs and besides 60 points a year max seems a nice pace to me.

Of course, there’s the “do nothing” option which is always appealing, isn’t it?

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It’s fascinating the way that children take the building blocks that they have and construct language in sometimes quite unexpected ways.

For instance, our eldest was 2 when we moved here and refers to my mum as “Granda’s Nanny” whereas the youngest was born here and calls her “Nanny at the airport” because he’s so used to seeing her as we arrive or leave.

Or, what about that final remnant of the inflections of Old English, that is the confusing difference between first and third person terms eg “I was” but “You were”? Has anyone succeeded in teaching their children the latter without being forced into saying “You was”? One wonders whether that distinction will disappear over the next century as has that between “I shall” and “You will” over the last century.

In our case we have quite an interesting perspective on “mother tongue” as with Wendy being from Australia and me being from Northern Ireland, it’s obvious which of us they’ve picked up various words from. In practical terms, the youngest effectively has a “father tongue” rather than a mother tongue as I’ve been around a lot more in the critical first couple of years. Having said that, both of them recount fairy tales with my accent as I’m the one that’s been reading them the bedtime stories.

What we’re wondering at the moment is what might be the effect on their accent if we move to an English speaking area?

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In days gone by, universities offered nice simple “packaged degrees”. Oh, sure you could vary the optional courses within one of their packages but, by and large, they stuck to the tried and trusted combinations such as BSc in physics, BA in English and whatnot.

These days though, flexibility is the name of the game and perhaps the ultimate in that game is the Open University. In addition to their general degree, they offer what’s quite a bewildering range of named degrees.

For example (and this is a simple example), in my own case I am on my (hopefuly) final course for a BA Hons Modern Languages in French and Spanish. Except that it’s not so simple because right now I could claim a BA degree and (all being well) I will also have the choice of a BA Hons degree as an alternative to the Modern Languages named one.

Had I changed one course I could have had a BA Hons European Studies or the modern languages in French & English or Spanish & English. Change two courses and you can add combinations such as BA Hons Humanities, BA French & Law, and many others.

What adds even more complexity is that the OU degrees are normally taken part-time so that they can span anything up to 12 years which is obviously quite a lot of time in which to change your original plans and many people do that of course (me included: I never dreamt that one day I’d be talking about finishing a modern languages degree).

Whilst this flexibility is, on the whole, a “good thing”, you do need to keep an eye on what you’re doing to avoid ending up with a rag-bag collection of subjects within your degree. If you’re planning on doing something with it some kind of focus is essential to avoid confusing potential employers. That’s not to say that you can’t throw in the oddball course that you always wanted to do (mine may be their Creative Writing course) but it’s best avoiding the temptation to do a lot of unrelated courses.

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