Degree

I just got my marks back on my last two essays for my Master’s Degree. I should explain, I guess, that I have never been a great academic; I left school somewhat prematurely as a result of my involvement in drugs, and was not able to get a place at another school, or get accepted into collage. Some three or four years ago I started studying Judaism in earnest and it's relationship to Christianity, and then came across a Masters Degree in the topic. I applied and much to my amazement was accepted on the strength of a short essay I submitted. Foolishly I decided to start the course by doing two modules simultaneously and drowned. The night before the essays were due in I contacted the course director and asked to be withdrawn. With some coaxing I withdrew from one module, and sat up all night to finish the two essays for the other module – the result being marks of 56 and 70. I was ecstatic to have passed my first two essays, and what’s more to have achieved a distinction in one of them.

Since then I have been trying desperately to achieve grades that will allow me to get a distinction for my degree over all – unfortunately without success. My next module scored 70, a distinction but no help in moving up my grade. I have just received my results from this year's work. 71. To achieve a distinction now I need to get a 76 on my next module, and it's on a topic I feel far more uncertain of than the last modules. In honesty, I am completely gutted. I don’t know what else I could have done to improve on the last modules I submitted, I felt I had done all I could and feel that I have failed.

My long suffering wife has pointed out that getting a Masters Degree at all is an achievement, particularly as I don’t have a degree, A-levels, or GCSE’s but I feel that I have let myself down. The cost of doing the course is huge, the cost of books is staggering, and I have failed to achieve what I should be able to.

To make things worse the next module will be done while also doing the first year of a degree in theology – and while working full time with a baby on the way. After the first year on the theology degree I will be transferred to the Masters Degree on the basis that by then I should have finished my current Masters – to do that I also have to have completed my dissertation – something I am struggling to do. I am drowning in sources, and struggling to get the texts I need. This is not helped by the fact that I haven't yet got a supervisor, as to engage them I need to pay the fees for the final part of my Masters, something I am unable to do right now. To complicate things further, some of the texts I need to access are only available in Hebrew and I have no gift for languages.

I should be happy – I should be pleased about the results I have got – but I remain, as always,

The Broken Man.