Background: I did a kind of liberal arts BA (including Literature, Art, Music, Drama, Creative Writing) when I was in my early 30s. I'd hated school and left at 16 without qualifications, but absolutely loved my degree course. My children were young and I needed to work as soon as I graduated so carrying on to a higher degree wasn't a possibility at the time, but I've always had at the back of my mind that I'd like to.
Fast forward 20 years, and my DDs are independent adults so I've started thinking seriously about the possibility. I've got as far in my job as I'm realistically going to want or need to go, so I wouldn't be doing it for promotion/work reasons, but for personal enjoyment.
I've done some background research on what's available locally, and I'm completely spoiled for choice! There are four universities in my city, all of them easy travelling distance for me, plus another five in neighbouring cities which I could get to. They all offer part-time degrees in loads of interesting things. I've done some extra-mural evening courses (not credited, and not hard!) at my most local university and loved them. There are also lots of courses from my local but also more distant universities offered as distance/online education if I want to go down that route.
My interests are wide, which is part of the problem. I'm looking in areas such as sociology, social policy, social anthropolgy, history, education and politics as well as the arts. And I don't know how to narrow it down! So I'm looking for advice on what I should be looking for, so that I can rule out some of the many fascinating-looking courses for which I appear to be qualified. Also, thoughts on whether I'm deluding myself about whether I could go straight back in at masters level after a 20-year gap, or whether I should look to do something intermediate first, e.g. a couple of undergraduate modules from the Open University.