Academic suicide, here I come!

The ideas that gave rise to this post are wiggling around and fermenting in my brain; I've been wanting to write something longer on the subject, but didn't have any concrete ideas; today I had a "Eureka!" moment: "I know what I'll do, I'll contact the French department about doing some sort of independent-study project on representations of the sexual Other in French Romantic literature!"

A bit of poking on the department website reveals that an honors thesis is out of the question, as I'm not a French major, and even if I were I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a year-long honors thesis approved without pre-planning in my junior year. However, semester-long special studies projects are open to "qualified juniors and seniors from other departments," and I think a year in Paris and five 300-level French classes = qualified.

Reasons why this is a bad idea:
- I am nominally a computer science major and people already tend to forget that and think I'm a French major
- Although I've done plenty of independent learnin' on the subject, I've never taken a queer theory (or even a women's studies) course in my life and haven't even read any Foucault or anything and am generally hideously underqualified for the "representations of the sexual Other" part
- Therefore I might end up taking like six classes spring semester--one or two advanced CS courses, ancient Greek, a French class on the Romantic novel, intro to queer studies, and special-studies project
- High probability that as soon as I start poking around in academic journals I will discover people who have already said everything I could possibly say on the subject, more eloquently than I could, and probably as background remarks prefacing some more specific subject

Reasons why I'll probably try to do it anyway:
- IT WOULD BE AWESOME OKAY
- I've already read most of the stuff I'd be writing about--everything except Aloys and Fragoletta and some more Duchesse de Duras novellas
- I already know who I'll ask to be my academic advisor for it--she's a specialist in Romantic-era France, I took her class on 1830 two years ago, and when I submitted a final essay that was full of "lol Dumas wrote his memoirs LIKE HE WAS THE HERO OF AN ALEXANDRE DUMAS NOVEL" she gave me an A and submitted it for a department prize
- It would probably count as social science, meaning I'll have completed the distribution requirements for Latin Honors and be able to graduate cum laude (unless my grades take a serious plunge in senior year)
- Schadenfreude makes the world a better place to be, so if I end up with six classes I will improve my housemates' lives immensely

Academic suicide, here I come!

The ideas that gave rise to this post are wiggling around and fermenting in my brain; I've been wanting to write something longer on the subject, but didn't have any concrete ideas; today I had a "Eureka!" moment: "I know what I'll do, I'll contact the French department about doing some sort of independent-study project on representations of the sexual Other in French Romantic literature!"

A bit of poking on the department website reveals that an honors thesis is out of the question, as I'm not a French major, and even if I were I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a year-long honors thesis approved without pre-planning in my junior year. However, semester-long special studies projects are open to "qualified juniors and seniors from other departments," and I think a year in Paris and five 300-level French classes = qualified.

Reasons why this is a bad idea:
- I am nominally a computer science major and people already tend to forget that and think I'm a French major
- Although I've done plenty of independent learnin' on the subject, I've never taken a queer theory (or even a women's studies) course in my life and haven't even read any Foucault or anything and am generally hideously underqualified for the "representations of the sexual Other" part
- Therefore I might end up taking like six classes spring semester--one or two advanced CS courses, ancient Greek, a French class on the Romantic novel, intro to queer studies, and special-studies project
- High probability that as soon as I start poking around in academic journals I will discover people who have already said everything I could possibly say on the subject, more eloquently than I could, and probably as background remarks prefacing some more specific subject

Reasons why I'll probably try to do it anyway:
- IT WOULD BE AWESOME OKAY
- I've already read most of the stuff I'd be writing about--everything except Aloys and Fragoletta and some more Duchesse de Duras novellas
- I already know who I'll ask to be my academic advisor for it--she's a specialist in Romantic-era France, I took her class on 1830 two years ago, and when I submitted a final essay that was full of "lol Dumas wrote his memoirs LIKE HE WAS THE HERO OF AN ALEXANDRE DUMAS NOVEL" she gave me an A and submitted it for a department prize
- It would probably count as social science, meaning I'll have completed the distribution requirements for Latin Honors and be able to graduate cum laude (unless my grades take a serious plunge in senior year)
- Schadenfreude makes the world a better place to be, so if I end up with six classes I will improve my housemates' lives immensely