The past year or so has been nothing like what anyone expected. Of course, this includes my plans for graduate school. I had originally planned to do the first year of MA studies in Linguistics at Wayne State in 2019-2020 and then I would defer the second year until 2024, when we might be back in the USA for a longer period of time again. The first surprise was moving online. Another very welcome surprise was that I was able to continue my studies for this entire year despite being on the other side of the world. So, it has been a wonderful surpise that I was able to complete all of the coursework for my graduate studies in two years, while being able to continue doing other work as well. I have also been pleasantly surprised by how much I have enjoyed going back to school. The relationships that I have developped with other students and with my professors have been an extra special treat.
It has also been surprising how well received the work of SIL has been in the very secular and public academic world. I have been humbled and surprised as I have been deepening my knowledge and skills at the way that the work I have the privilege to be part of in Cameroon has been highlighted. One example is found in this article at the Wayne State Linguistics Program :