Hunger to Learn
Posted in Academic Pursuits and tagged with Learning, Reading on January 6, 2010
This is by no means a new topic here on the Ignorant Historian. [Time out. Should there be quotes around a blog title? Italics? Seems like it should be treated like a book or a play, and the post titles be treated like smaller works like articles. If anyone knows of anything about this, I'd love to hear it. Actually, this goes nicely with the theme of this post!]
I obviously love to learn, which is why I read so much. Even still, there are times when I enjoy learning more than others. And this is one of them.
Of the five books I’m reading now (I read across 5 categories: current (since 1950) fiction, classic fiction, biography, spiritual growth, and other nonfiction), all 5 are hard to put down. I’m enjoying them, and learning, and pondering about many different things, posts to come. The thought of continuing my formal studies is appealing, until I realize that higher degrees get more specific, not more broad. There’s not one thing that I want to learn everything about, but there are plenty of things I want to learn a little about. I want to be well-rounded, not an expert (except maybe in learning).
If I had to choose ONE area to study, I’m not sure what I’d choose. Nineteenth-century literature, perhaps? What about you?
Photo by victoriapeckham
Related posts:
- Where She Stops, Nobody Knows Tis the time of the month for a story! So,...
- Fiction is Just Fiction? I love to read. That’s nothing new. Many of you...
- My Own English Channel I’m not wearing any green. It’s not that I really...
- Faith ‘n’ Fiction Roundtable: Discussion of Wounded This is one portion of the Faith ‘n’ Fiction Roundtable...
- My Hopes: the Realistic Version I’m not saying that I’ve given up my dreams of...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:05 am
I totally know what you mean. . .I have a masters in math, and I started my doctorate. I really enjoyed doing my masters, and there were so many more things I wanted to explore! As I got further and further in, though, I started to feel more and more claustrophobic about it. I wanted to study MORE, not LESS, and doing a doctorate was sort-of forcing me to study less. So I stopped.
I think if I had to choose ONE area to study NOW, it would be grammar. . .but then I am sure I would end up being forced to refine that even more and more and more until it just wasn’t fun anymore. It’s so hard, this higher degree thing.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:07 am
We’re similar in so many ways! I was completely unfocused in my undergrad studies, stuffing as many courses into my schedule as I possibly could. I was an accounting major, but I also ended up with a degree in psychology just because I found so many courses interesting that before I knew it, I had enough credits for my BA. I was also only 2 classes away from a finance degree, and pretty close to an English degree, education degree, and biology degree. That’s what happens when you take 8 classes per semester :) I also have my MA in Elementary Ed, which is actually a wonderfully broad topic since while the focus is on teaching, the subject matter is so varied: writing, math, science, children’s lit, special ed, inclusion, etc. Very fun topic to study! If I went back to school, it would probably be for a special education degree. Not sure if I will, though. We’ll see!
January 6th, 2010 at 8:08 am
I, too, love to learn new things. Right now I’d have to say that if I could learn more about one topic it would have to be Art History. I LOVE art museums, but I really have no idea what I”m looking at – only if I like it or not. I’d love to know more.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:25 am
I am still trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up. Thinking over the teachers I have had, the ones that were the best…I got what they were talking about…were the ones that struggled more in their studies. The “knowledgeable” ones knew so much that they couldn’t bring it down to the average student’s level. I just enjoy things around me and then want to move on. Does that make sense?
January 6th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Your blog titles are fine–however, if you want to conform to AP guidelines, don’t capitalize (sp?) all the words unless they are proper nouns or the first word in the title; that’s the biggest thing that’s hard for me to get used to with writing for Examiner.
As for what I want to study…I’m going to have to side with GZoe on this one. I am still trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up, and will probably not find out for a long long time. I don’t like to restrict my learning to one arena however.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Way to go, Amanda…
January 6th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Once again, I feel the same way. I want to be that person in the crowd who knows the facts and stats and is smart about a lot of things. Right now I know a lot about ideas, but not a lot of facts. I don’t want to ever stop learning!
January 16th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I find that since being in school, I tend to write my blog posts in APA format (and to think I thought I wouldn’t be able to get used to it). I believe if you italicize the title of your blog, it will stand out. Amanda is right though: for proper APA format, your blog title would look like this – Ignorant historian.
But that just feels kind of wrong…