classes

After being told last year, "Take three classes- there's plenty of time to complete your requirements!" and this year "You're taking four classes, two of which are Syntax and Phonology? You're crazy!," I've now been told to take a fifth class.

I'm in the core courses (Syntax and Phonology) right now, and they don't seem that hard. OK, so Syntax is a little dense, but Phonology seems awfully similar to Phonetics, at least so far. My other two classes are German (candy!) and the EU class. I know this is hard to grasp, but we are never held accountable in any way for any of the material we learn during the lectures for that class. No homework, no quizzes, no tests. We just spend the semester writing one paper, which is most likely related tangentially to a single lecture. Scary.

So, I could definitely handle a fifth class. The only catch is that the one I probably would have taken is full, but I don't mind auditing that or something else.

The FLAS fellowship is a double-edged sword. It cuts the number of real classes you can take in half. Teaching, on the other hand, just doubles your stress level- it doesn't slow down your progress on the degree.