Now and Then

When I graduated from university in the 1990s, I did not envisage enrolling in another degree programme some 25 years later. Well, as I am gradually moving from the procrastination stage (that I am incredibly good at, btw) to the thesis-writing-for-real-now-stage, let me reflect on some things I have noticed that are different second time round. While several people have asked me if learning new things is more difficult "in old age" I really would not say so due to the fact that you can "slot in" and connect newly acquired knowledge with past ones in your brain's filing cabinet and also better prioritise what is even worth remembering in the first place, so nope. What has definitely become easier is researching and getting hold of secondary literature. I have literally not once set foot in a library, nor ever been to the university that my programme is affiliated with, because all my lectures took place elsewhere and I always filter for "online only" sources, which has served me well, so far. Also, being able to search for relevant paragraphs by a simple "control" + "F" keyboard combination rather than having to leaf through pages upon pages is a great timesaver. Once you have found something worth referring to or quoting, just take a screenshot and paste that one to your master file of literature snippets. Easy cheesy. This digital blessing is also a curse, though as distractions are so much easier than back in the "dark ages" when you didn't have a smartphone, nor any other phone than your landline and the internet was a new phenomenon that you only accessed from SPECIAL computers in SPECIAL designated rooms at SPECIAL times, basically. Now, distractions are only a browser tab or phone notification away unless you are incredibly disciplined, which I am definitely not. It takes longer for me to get into the zone and to really focus on working than I remember. All in all, I still really enjoy (pseudo-) scientific writing and it's so much easier now that you can insert footnotes within seconds and MS Word is not this expensive programme with rudimentary functionality that is still a mystery to you, but a tool that you have become familiar with in the past decades. Also, I probably type with double the speed I did when I was a student, so years as an office-worker and .pptx b**** have paid off at least.