Taking the Leap Back into Books

I have made the decision to go back to school for a while and top-up my academic skills set. Outside of the Church there isn’t a great deal of demand for theology and biblical studies, so it is about time that I put a few more strings to my bow. This doesn’t mean that I have found my academic career unsatisfying or useless – on the contrary both have been invaluable to me, and whatever field of study I find myself in next I would like it to supplement and be supplemented by what I have been doing to this point. Today Trinity College, my Alma Mater, had a post-graduate open day; setting out its wares to entice prospective students to spend their money with them. Yes, at six grand and change for a years’ worth of a library card for an M.Phil. it really does seem to be about the money. It all has me wondering just how much one of my kidneys will fetch on the organ market. My lungs certainly won’t get me much – that’s for sure. This open day, hosted in the same exam hall where I did battle with Ethics on a hangover, wasn’t that good. There were lots of pamphlets and other bumph, but not a single free pen in sight. No free pens? What do they take me for?!

Entering the exam hall I did the circuit, clockwise so as to avoid an old head I recognised, and made sure to visit all the stalls that interested me the most. History, Classics, and Education. Then I had to remind myself that I was there hoping to make myself more marketable. So that was the end of Classics at least, and possibly History. Education wasn’t offering very much at all. The best this department had to offer was a year of online study and one fuzzy group seminar a week – more of a get-to-meet-the-other-students sort of fuzzy seminar. Education looked more like a very expensive drinking session with a free library pass. Nope, that wasn’t going to be it either. Nothing in Trinity was standing out. To be nice I took the prospectus and read it later in Thunders’ Café. It was then that I noticed one that stood out – Race, Ethnicity and Conflict in the School of Sociology. Conflict! I think that I will give this one a closer look.