Arts (Global)

This post is a crosspost from Jayeless, and has been backdated to the date on which I posted it. It can be found in its original location at Jayeless » Arts (Global).

Yesterday, VTAC finally published all the tertiary course offers from 2010. I was offered my first preference -- Arts (Global) at Monash University -- and so, once I've enrolled, I'll be a student of the Bachelor of Arts (Global).

Arts (Global) is essentially a Bachelor of Arts, just more restrictive (but I mean that in the nicest possible way). Because it's a requirement of the BA (Global), my major will be international studies. This is fine, because it was going to be international studies or history or politics, anyway. However, it has to be international studies. There is no squirming out of it. There is no doing INT1010 and INT1020 (a first-year sequence for all three) and then deciding afterwards which area of study I want to major in. It's international studies or... uh, working out how to change my course. Which is probably possible.

Aside from international studies, I want to study linguistics, because that's sounded like one of the most interesting areas of study ever since I was about thirteen. Alas, the high school curriculum is tailored towards literature crap instead of linguistic awesomeness, so I was never able to¹. But now I am! And in case you couldn't tell, I am not planning to study English (literature). All throughout high school, my favourite parts of English were all the parts that didn't involve reading books (or worse: poetry), so a subject all about reading books is probably not one I should take.

I also want to take a second language. I'm undecided between Spanish and French, but I have to decide soon (by the end of next week, I think). I think Spanish would be more useful, since it's spoken by twice or three times the number of people who speak French, and is the primary language of more countries. However, since I already know some French, it's tempting to study that because it'd be easier. Right now, I'm probably leaning towards Spanish, but it's like a 55-45 split.

The last thing that should be mentioned about this course is that it requires me to spend one semester overseas, on exchange, at another university. Of course, this further influences my deliberations over French v. Spanish because I'd probably choose to go to whichever country matched up with my chosen language, which would be France for French, or Mexico for Spanish. Of course, if neither works out, I can also study in another English-speaking country for a semester.

Anyway, I have to spend the next week and a bit scrambling to get enrolment and unit selection over with, but then I'll be an Arts student at last! Exciting.

1. Unless I wanted to do another distance education subject (in addition to international studies and history)... which I really didn't!