Friday, December 18, 2009

Deciding which writing class to attend

Remember me talking about applying to writing classes at the University? Well, anyways, I applied to three completely different classes as I couldn't make my mind up about which one I really wanted to take part in.

I got accepted to all three.

And now I've had to think it all trough to decide which one to actually attend. As always, when making big decisions, I started to make lists of pros and cons. Here are the three lists:

1. 50% course in Creative Writing. In English. Choice of being a student online or on campus.
+ Seriously interesting syllabus. Covers a whole lot of things and aspects.
+ The choice of whether I want to take the class online or on campus.
+ Getting even more practise in writing in English and the opportunity to make real progress.
- A lot of work and many hours. I would prefer a 25% class as I'm going to keep working full-time.
- The risk of being surrounded by people who might make me question my abilities in English.

2. 25% course in Writing in different genres. In Swedish. Classes on campus.
+ The 25% (which means a workload of approximately 5 hours per week)
+ A versatile syllabus that hopefully would leave me with skills that I can use both professionally and in my own private writing.
+ Taking it as a class on campus will make it "real".
+ It's in Swedish which will force me to write more in Swedish outside of work.
- Not geared towards creative writing and might end up dull and stiff (might feel like work work instead of fun work)
- The reading list is loooong and getting the text books will be expensive.

3. 25% course in Creative Writing. In Swedish. All online.
+ It's a creative writing class!
+ The 25% (which means a workload of approximately 5 hours per week)
+ It's in Swedish which will force me to write more in Swedish outside of work.
+ It will give me some "anonymity" as it's online and that might make it easier to write and critique the texts of the others.
- It's all online and it might be veeery hard for me to commit.

I decided to go with number 3. To see if classes in creative writing is anything for me. If they are, I can apply to another one for fall. And if they aren't but I still want to write, I can try the middle class.

This class will give me university credits and my work will be graded. I hope this will turn into a motivation factor instead of a stress factor...

Wish me luck!

3 comments:

Annas garndrömmar said...

GRATTIS! Så spännande att du ska följa din skrivdröm! Jag läste från början och tänkte "låter det inte som att kursen i kreativt skrivande är nåt för dig" och i meningen efter var det precis det du bestämt dig för. Jättekul. Lycka till!

crrly said...

Vad roligt, grattis och lycka till!

essjay said...

That must have been a hard choice and I do hope this one works out for you and that you really enjoy it!