OU blog

Personal Blogs

Week 22 - Moving Forward - Reflection

Visible to anyone in the world

There’s nothing quite like a pandemic to prompt a re-evaluation of where your life is headed. In 2020, after months of lock-down and another wave of infections on the horizon, I finally did what I had been threatening to do for years: enrol in a degree course.

I’m no stranger to studying or taking courses, but the vast majority of my adult learning has been in the arena of continual professional development, i.e. short term courses designed to improve my programming skills and make my resume sparkle.

This time around however I decided to pursuit my passion, to follow my heart.

From an early age I’ve always felt the gravitational pull towards creativity. I was one of those strange kids that sat at hone drawing while my friends played football; read comic-books while they had adventures. This is what attracted me to Arts and Humanities. I guess you could say, beneath my cold programming exterior, there was the heart of a poet. (Or so I tell myself).

That’s not to say I didn’t have reservations or worries about my decision. In fact, the second the money left my bank account doubts began to creep up:

How was I going to keep myself motivated?

How would I measure progress?

And lastly, what was the point of learning humanities in this day and age?

How to keep myself motivated?

When the course began in January I hit the ground sprinting. In the space of a week and a half I completed four chapters and had already made a start on the first assignments.

But I knew this wasn’t sustainable. I was riding a fake wave of motivation, fed by my childlike enthusiasm for anything new. It would soon ebb and die and then where would I be? Besides, Arts and Humanities seemed like a discipline that encouraged students to slow down and appreciate the beauty in life, tackling the materials with such velocity seemed obscene.

Thankfully I eventually saw the error of my ways.

The most consequential change I made was setting myself this weekly writing challenge. Writing a 500-600 word summary of each chapter I read and posting it as a blog entry was a great experience. But this didn’t always go to plan. Some weeks I wrote about subject matters that had little or no relation to the original topic.

This didn’t help me crystallize the materials, but it slowed my pace of study. I also found the exercise quite satisfying and, most importantly, I inadvertently stumbled upon the most sustainable type of motivation: having a laugh.

Measuring progress

Studying online has many advantages but it also comes with its own unique challenges. I was often concerned about how I would go about measuring my progress and identifying knowledge gaps. In a traditional classroom setting this is achieved by frequent feedback, questions and answers sessions , and hanging-out with other students (a highly underrated part of the learning process).

Online learning is much more solitary. The number of lectures and drop-in sessions are limited and it can take weeks to receive feedback on a piece of work.

Given these circumstances, the emphasis falls to the student to cultivate their own learning environment. This is why receiving feedback on an assignment was so important to me. It felt like I was finally engaging with the tutor one-on-one and had a chance to find out where my skill levels were.

My experience with feedback is pretty good.

First of all I approach the suggestions with a growth mindset. Understanding your weaknesses are a great way to grow. I would always highlight two or three areas that I would tackle for the next assignment.

One drawback that has been mentioned about my work was referencing. I seem to have a habit of making statements without fully qualifying where the ideas came from. Not surprising, in life I make wild unsubstantiated statements all the time.

“Use a quote to back up your argument.”

“I’m not sure where you form this impression”

In my last assignment I tried to address these shortfalls, but I still think I have a long way to go. Referencing, I’ve come to realize, is an art-form. Which quotes to use, where to deploy them for greatest effect, these choices can all have a huge impact on the writing.

In short, I know I have more to learn but I’m looking forward to the journey.

What’s the point of Humanities?

A few years ago, I took a two-hour sketching course. I’m not joking when I say it changed the way I looked at the world. I began appreciating the shape of leaves, the geometry of buildings, the subtle variation of shadow and light. Arts and humanities has brought about similar, but more comprehensive, changes within me. I now look at everything differently. Paintings appear more vivid; music has more depth. Chapter 5 even ignited an interest in sculpting that I had never realized I had.

It has also brought about unexpected benefits too. I didn’t think my job as a computer programmer would be impacted but it has. My weekly presentations have improved immensely. In the past I would just turn up and wing it, but now I find myself thinking carefully about the structure of my presentation.

One more benefit I’d like to mention is critical thinking. Before I was never much of a person to question anything. I wasn’t gullible, I was just lazy. Nowadays, however, I find myself questioning more and more. Reading the newspaper, watching documentaries or the news, I often wonder where the information came from, and can it be trusted. I’m not exactly a conspiracy theorist yet but give me time.


Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 10271