I have been mulling this over for some time mainly due to lack of confidence and worry… and the ‘am I doing the right thing’… The carpe diem (though every time I think of that phrase I think of the saccharine coated yuck factor…Dead Poets Society film) kicked in and finally, finally and finally have decided to do study a short course in reportage photography early next year and hopefully if that goes well then I will sign-up (*holds her breath*) to study a part-time BA in Photography and the courses I have been looking at allow flexibility and a chance to study other courses/modules. The downside is that blogging will be very light from next year and not the usual conveyor belt style of posting…..
With photography, I have to admit I feel confident with this and actually enjoy photography, and experimenting with the whole process. It also gives me the chance to study photography theoretically as well (Ha! A good start as I have 2 out of the 3 intro. books!).
The downside to these courses is how phenomenally expensive they are a deterrent from studying if ever…absolutely appalling these financial constraints serve as a class barrier to stop people from studying…. The annual course fees for the p/t degree are something around £3,000… Better start saving now and hope Father Xmas leaves me wodges of cash under the Xmas tree…..
Best of luck with your studies.
Re funding: alternative approaches to Father Christmas might be
1. – get a loan, which shouldn’t in theory be too hard to repay once you start earning money from your reporting/photography
2. – work hard and save up for the course.
I do appreciate that you want to get started now, and that private-sector provision of student loans is very limited (I assume a public student loan is not available?) Undergraduate education is not seen as a good investment by the financial sector, mainly because of the massive and ludicrous expansion of very generously subsidised university places to people who either
– drop out
– aren’t bright enough to merit university education, so never earn enough to pay their loans back.
Regrettably, deserving people with determination and true economic need find it very hard to borrow to fund their studies.
It’s all to do with higher education being an expensive privilege not a right. The benefits, including tax, accrue strongly (and measurably) in favour of the individual more than to society. Particularly for arts degrees, less so for engineering and still less for medicine. Therefore the individual must pay.