{"id":23550,"date":"2017-09-28T15:26:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T19:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=23550"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:59:07","slug":"amandas-blog-fourth-year-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2017\/amandas-blog-fourth-year-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Amanda's Blog \u2013 My Fourth Year Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Amanda's Blog \u2013 My Fourth Year Begins\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
\"Amanda\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Allow me to introduce myself: I\u2019m Amanda, a fourth-year English Language and Literature<\/a> student with a minor in Greek and Roman<\/a> studies. My passions are reading and writing alongside teaching and music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m really excited to be a \u201cLife in English\u201d blogger<\/a> this year because, while I am graduating in May, I\u2019m hoping my Carleton journey won\u2019t end quite yet; next year, with any luck, I\u2019ll be returning to this department as an MA student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all honesty, I love Carleton and that is why I\u2019m hoping to continue my graduate studies here. Some people have bad things to say about the school, about how supposedly \u2018easy\u2019 it is to get accepted, but to them I say I\u2019m proud to know that Carleton offers an opportunity for success to those who did not thrive in a high-school setting. And while people may think it’s easy to get in, it’s definitely not easy to graduate. Did I mention I want to be a teacher? I guess I like to hold out hope that everyone will find their academic passion and the fact that my school might allow somebody to do just that makes me proud. I hope someday, when I am teaching English at the high-school level, I can inspire even just one of my students the way some of my professors at Carleton have inspired me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, just because I am academically inspired doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easy going. Don\u2019t get me wrong: sometimes I dread writing a paper, going to class in the coldest months of the year, or stomaching the long commute home just to spend yet another late night studying. But then again, every once in a while, a paper comes along, one that I sit with for hours mulling over a thesis and doing careful close reading, building an argument that I actually get excited about and throw all my passion into because I realize I’ve actually found a good idea. Have you ever heard something so nerdy as getting excited over some thorough literary analysis? Yet, that’s what I live for and that’s why I’m as excited as I am scared for my fourth-year to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll be honest: this year is particularly daunting and exhilarating for more reasons than one. First, I am balancing my fourth-year class schedule with my work (I\u2019m a piano teacher), my choir (the Canterbury Trebles), my mentorship (Carleton\u2019s FYC program), and what little time I have left for a social life and family. I also commute from Manotick (where you may ask?), but that\u2019s nothing new. Second, while in previous years I worked to keep a high GPA to maintain my entrance scholarship and be able to apply to other awards, this year I am working to maintain those grades for grad school and eventually, teachers’ college. Scary stuff. Finally, this isn\u2019t an ordinary fourth-year course load I\u2019m talking about. I am also one of the students in this year\u2019s Accelerated Pathway Program, which means that instead of taking two fourth-year courses, I am taking two graduate-level courses in their place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was I thinking, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, while I\u2019m so excited to graduate and start this next chapter of my life, try out some MA-level courses, and to be a mentor<\/a> to new Carleton<\/a> students, I am also terrified of drowning under the weight of my new responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then, when I walk around the airy Carleton campus (which admittedly has a bit more construction than usual marring its peacefulness), it still gets a little easier to take a breath and know that I can do this, I can work hard, I just need to take it one day at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life in English<\/a> is exhausting, scary, and difficult, especially when you know that there is no right or wrong answer in literary exploration, but rather you must rely on your ability to prove your own claims. But then, Life in English is also invigorating, fascinating, and enlightening precisely because there isn\u2019t a right answer. Everything is open to investigation and imagination, your opinions are free to be shared and debated, and you can learn as much from your peers\u2019 ideas as you can from your professors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look forward to learning from the experience of being a fourth-year blogger and maybe, if I\u2019m lucky, some of you will learn vicariously through my experiences as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allow me to introduce myself: I\u2019m Amanda, a fourth-year English Language and Literature student with a minor in Greek and Roman studies. My passions are reading and writing alongside teaching and music. I\u2019m really excited to be a \u201cLife in English\u201d blogger this year because, while I am graduating in May, I\u2019m hoping my Carleton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[387,25,849],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amandas-blog","category-student-blogs","category-student-voices"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23550"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53659,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23550\/revisions\/53659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}