hmm thank u for asking!! So in my very personal experience i go to a very loose, borderline hippie college well as loose and as hippie as u get considering it's ran by the main regulatory body of technological universities in the country i live in and thus abides by all the laws and etc that maintain it as an institution. but so basically i also do a dual degree (eng/psychology), so i can't really provide as cohesive an image of the experience so far since it's only 50% of my degree, and in first year there's a big focus on the drama/theatre/cultural component of english literary studies. the modules that focus solely on english literature (like novels/poems etc etc) in the first & second semester - are taught by this Incredible lecturer who has this very student-led approach, which tbh has been the most constructive beneficial learning approach in all of my education experience. she doesn't lecture us necessarily - her classes are alll discussion-based, entirely reliant on student interaction and input, she has her powerpoint lecture presentations sent to us, expects we watch and listen to them, and makes us answer questions in class regarding the texts we look at but in a conversational context . idk how commonly this is done in english courses but it is completely student-led and discussion based in my degree course. Also i live in Ireland so a lot of what we cover is in the context of Ireland, Irish authors etc (especially later on apparently). in terms of assignments so far it's just been essays/presentations. I really love my classes and it's really solidified my love for literature analysis and discussion and makes me want to do it for the rest of my life.

decubital

7 months ago

that sounds like an extremely rewarding lesson structure — i was so extremely disillusioned by my university pushing 'core units' on us (huge classes that focused on literary breadth rather than depth, forced participation via online discussion posts, had laughable word-count restrictions on assignments) & cutting a lot of the interesting but smaller higher-level units that i didn't really regret switching majors for a long time. i'm really glad you're enjoying your experience! i have recently gotten involved with some book clubs/writing groups in my city, so hopefully that scratches my itch

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jhaynewe

7 months ago

Yeah, it's exceptionally rewarding. I'm sorry your experiences as an english major were not. I'd love to get involved more in my local arts and writing scene - a lot of it is buried under obscurity and a quintessentially Irish form of bureaucracy where they feel a need to make everything so streamlined and casual it ends up becoming so loose with threads leading to everywhere and also nowhere. What books have u been reading for these book clubs if you don't mind me asking?

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