A Huge Relief

I found out last week that I’ve been accepted to read for a Masters at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

I applied to St Andrews because its program is so unique – you spend the first semester studying at the Beijing Foreign Studies University (北京外国语大学 – I wonder why it’s not called the Beijing University of Foreign Languages or something like that), and the following semester and summer in Scotland studying and writing a dissertation.

It’s exciting: Sept.–Jan. in China, then Feb.–Aug. in Scotland. I feel pretty lucky and, since I only applied to two graduate programs, am greatly relieved that one of them took me. I suppose the whole thing might have been less stressful had I applied to more schools, but I didn’t want to apply to any school that I wasn’t passionate about studying at. (I learned a lesson from undergrad.)