I'm a lot happier with the way the degree is going in this semester. I really feel that the first 18 months could have been condensed into a six-week crash course, and if I'd known how awful and brain-crushing it was going to be, I probably would have gone somewhere else and done something else.

As it is, it's taken until halfway through the degree until I feel I'm actually doing anything constructive towards my chosen career path instead of just sitting in a room being told about Galtung and sodding Ruge all day every day.

But I'm still here and it's improving all the time, and I'm really looking forward to the third year and having even more freedom over what I can write. For me, that was what I wanted to get out of the degree, I wanted to develop my own style, and progress as a writer.

I still find myself wondering what things would be like somewhere else, but having spoken to others it seems to be a common trait, so it's not just me. I hope.

The high point has definitely been a senior lecturer who shall remain un-named (Kevin) coming into one of the classes asking people if they'd show around potential students and talk to them about the course. Is that really a good idea, Kev?

The low point was unmistakably the dawning realisation in about week four of semester one of this year that we were learning nothing new, just covering everything we did in the first year. Again. And again. And then correcting the mistakes some lecturers had made. And then going over it again. And again. Ad nauseum until half of the students had dropped out or died of boredom or both.