(no subject)

[zen_monk]

 In recent news, working in candy store retail is fun and engaging. Definitely less responsibilities than working in a dining hall, but the manager is fun to work with and I feel comfortable talking with her on many things. Even asked her for constructive criticism on my interview seeing as tomorrow I'm going to have another interview for working in a law firm as an office assistant. Hopefully one that would like to train plucky Literature/Philosophy double major postgraduate people so that my law track can be confirmed. Or at least useful office experience so that I can move onwards into clerical work. 

Mediation law sounds really intense, though. 

More and more, though, my friend and I are finding the idea of an Armenian-Chinese food fusion restaurant to profit off "adventurous" diners to be a plausible reality. The foods we discussed for this fantasy actually sounds good, too.

Also took on some online courses in Coursera, which actually looks really interesting. Only a few things offered that pinged interests with me, but some of them do look really cool. Even started looking at MIT free online syllabuses and texts. Certainly got my friend hooked on it, as she's more of an avid intellectual reader than me, particularly around the politics courses. 

Started to expand looking at other places to go for possible Master's degree programs. One place is the American University at Cairo to think about Middle Eastern studies or even around political journalism. A little bit indecisive about it, but I'm starting to see it as an actual interest for me to pursue. A little bit more definite than trying to come up with a way to go to China for pursuing a degree, but at least I have professors who are interested in writing letters of rec for me for either regions and whom I can go to for advice, so an academic field in a non-Western place would actually be feasible. 

I have also recently learned that my extended relatives are people whose beliefs come from A Certain Age. 

Comments

[novel_machinist]

I keep meaning to check out the free MIT courses. Are they good?

[sarasa_cat]

Good luck on the interview!

Political journalism sounds interesting, especially in Cairo.

What do you think of the Coursera courses? I know a few people who have taken statistics and computer science courses through them and liked them, but I don't know anyone who has taken social sciences or history courses online yet. Curious.

[zen_monk]

The Coursera courses seem interesting, and as they are lectures from respected universities I find myself giving it more faith than I thought initially. Right now I am taking a two part class in learning to write in Python, and later on I will be taking an Islamic Constitutional class and a journalism class of which the latter is taught by lecturers in University of Melbourne, Plagues, Witches, and War: The Worlds of Historical Fiction from University of Virginia, and a law class regarding media platforms. I do think that the courses offered currently are not a lot, though it seems to run by a kind of semester or quarter system, but I'm excited to learn from it.

A friend of mine, who is going to be doing Birthright in Armenia next year (as she is Lebanese-Armenian-American, and very proud of that heritage), is trying to convince me of going to the Middle East with her at some point in the future so the both of us would be journalists (or in my case, something within the humanities). To be honest, I haven't thought too much on a future that would include traveling to places like Cairo or in Beirut but talking to her a lot about it makes it seem not only feasible but even very respectable as well. It ironically seems to be more feasible to try my hand in going there than going to China, but we'll see what'll come once next year comes.

[zen_monk]

I think most of the MIT courses consists mainly of providing a syllabus and following the reading with the syllabus and notes that come with the lecture. I'm more into having a teacher providing a lecture or getting peer feedback, but they do provide resources like free pdfs of textbook chapters and of lecture notes. I'm going to commit more on Coursera since I've got a couple courses signed up and it seemed to fit some of my interests there.

[sarasa_cat]

About a month ago I looked at the Plagues, Witches, and War course! :D

I've been having a hard time finding history and humanities courses online. Lots of mathematics and computer science though. Perhaps I need to dig deeper to find the non-STEM/CS courses?

[zen_monk]

There's a filtering system on the website that lets you search between majors and subjects. The Humanities category itself has about 160+ courses available or available in the future, but of course it may be that number because it has overlap with other subjects, e.g. history course overlapping with economics.

Kinda wished that the STEM courses have more beginner's classes than what seems to be more upper division-like courses, though.