Well I'm Done

I finished my last exam just a little over an hour ago, so now that I am free from the responsibilities of school I thought I would give you guys an update.

The term is officially done now and all that is left before I return home is a trip to Germany and then to Turkey before I return to England for a week of relaxation before heading home.

Well I promised at the beginning of the term that I would hold off making any sort of judgment between the two systems of education that I have been exposed to now. However, the term is now done and I feel that I can make a judgment in good conscience.

Personally I enjoy the independence offered students in the British system. For each week of class we were given an extensive reading from which to choose what we wanted to read. There were some texts that were highly recommended, but as far as responses and critiques of major philosophical themes were concerned we could choose where we wanted to turn for arguments. In that respect I gained the ability to read texts and quickly pick up on major themes and arguments that would not be brought up in class.

To a certain extent the system back home is nice as well, because you really get to know what precisely is important to the direction of the course and, more importantly, what will be on the final exams.

But the independence offered students here to pursue avenues of thought and argumentation that they might find interesting and fruitful is very nice.

On the flip-side, however, the exam set up here is brutal in an entirely different sense than back home. Here exams are stretched out across a five week long time frame, coming after a month long vacation. While this provides for more time to revise (study) for exams, it is hard to maintain enthusiasm for revising for such a long period of time. By the end of week two I had already developed a mild case of senioritis and really couldn't be bothered to study anymore. But I pushed through it and finished strong. Personally I much rather have the stress filled week of exams that I have back at Creighton than the month of dullness that I experienced over here.

But that's enough for now... the weather is nice so its off to the lake on campus to sit, relax, and enjoy time with friends.