57031 – Non-Fiction Writing

Late this month I will be starting my Graduate Diploma in Writing. While dealing with some problems while trying to enrol into subjects, I finally managed to get a nice timetable for Autumn semester – Monday to Wednesday, 6-9pm. Not only am I free in the mornings all throughout the week, my friend Shaz also has the same timetable, which means we can be PostGrad buddies!¹

Today in the morning I got an emailed from the subject coordinator for my Non-fiction writing class. This is no uncommon – a few weeks before classes start, the subject coordinators send an email welcoming the students and giving any information they should know. For the last two years I have been ignoring this – actually, I think I never really read this kind of emails.

Today was the exception.

I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because working for SMASH! got me into reading the emails I get instead of just moving them to the folders they belong to. Maybe it was because I’m actually excited about this subject. Maybe a combination of both. It doesn’t matter at the end.

I wasn’t happy to find out we were required to buy texts for the subjects. The first and only time I was required to do this was in my first year for a subject called Understanding Communications. We hated that subject so much we were planning on burning our texts. ² That one book cost me around $80, and it’s worse in other faculties when you have to buy even more for every semester, so I wasn’t really happy about this.

Luckily I checked on the bookstore’s website and found one one was only $9! And it was actually a novel from the 1940′s! That got me excited. The other book costs $27, which is $7 more than what I like to pay for books, but it looks interesting as well. Either way, I was happy, and I might get them tomorrow or next week, as a matter of fact.

I also logged into UTS Online, which I haven’t done so since November last year. I was surprised to say every weekly reading was already there, as well as the subject outline. The latter is what I want to talk about next.

Usually about the only thing that I’m interested when it comes to subject outlines is the assignments. That’s about the only reason I ever check it. As always, when it comes to a Communication degree, I only have three assignments per subject.

The first assignment is a biographical sketch – I just need to write a 2,000 word biography on a living or dead person who has/had a public image. Mainly aimed to test the research skills of a student, I believe I will do it on John Green. Hopefully he’s fine with it. xD;

The second assignment is a class presentation where I analyse a non-fiction text of my choosing. I have to admit I’m not looking forward to this assignment. Speaking to the class is not really something I’m fond of. I’d rather write a book report, hehe.

The third and final assignment is the one I’m more interested in. Pretty much it requires me to go to a place in Sydney, either by car, bus or train, and write a 1,500 piece about it. Really, that’s it. Man, I might actually practice for this and write blog posts about random places!

I feel like I’m going to really enjoy this subject. I can’t wait to find out more about my other two subjects.