Student Life – Social learning

For me, before I started distance learning,
I thought that the experience
would be quite a solitary experience,
with me just sitting in front of a computer
and a few books.
It’s been far from that.
It’s kind of exceeded my expectations.
I work with students virtually
on a daily basis:
both digitally, via social media,
the online tutor group,
video conferencing;
and also through kind of
social media channels,
maybe WhatsApp, and different groups that
we kind of set up to support each other.
With my – I suppose – work,
and academic, and kind of hobbies
and interests, being together
as a family, you would perceive as
being quite a challenge. But,
I think I’ve managed to
actually establish a pretty strong
work-life balance: I definitely value
family time.
What we tend to do
is make certain sections of our week,
where we spend time together and
dedicate time together as a family.
So, my academic journey has
not been as mapped out as most people.
A couple of years before
I started my GCSEs,
I suffered from an illness,
when I was younger.
Actually, towards my GCSEs,
I was home tutored
and didn’t come out with a full,
massive array of qualifications.
So, I kind of left school,
but I didn’t go into the university
progression.
When, later on in life,
I actually started working in the civil service,
I got to a pretty
good position, but I needed to try
and improve my academic qualifications.
So, I did my degree:
BA Honours in leadership management.
And I was fortunate enough,
through the degree,
to kind of pass with a first-class honours
and actually get an International
Student of the Year award
for my academic achievements, which
has fostered my academic journey into
the masters, and it’s something that
has been a transformational,
life-changing experience.
To work with students located
across the world has been
-has been brilliant and I’ve developed
a network of people and even friends.
I’ll give you an example where
I’ve been working
recently, collaboratively, with another student:
we’ve been able to
bring up a document, share
it on the screen, and actually
work on that document live.
Time zones is a challenge:
trying to work out a time
that’s most convenient for everybody.
We’ve got around those challenges
by setting clear roles,
clear expectations, clear timelines.
I think if you take the time to
make sure you’ve got the latest
software and programs to support it,
you can transform your experience
as a distance learner.
Personally, I’ve decided,
over the years, to transfer
all of my work into the cloud.
The greater advantage that
gives is I’m able to access it from
any device at any location.
I could be kind of travelling
out and about and I could
be updating stuff from my mobile.
It gives you complete versatility
on any device
and I think that’s been
a big advantage for me.
And I think from the kind of
network of contacts
I’ve had from studying
with distance learning,
I have actually developed
some lasting relationships;
that I can see myself kind of
having that network
many years later, even when
I finish studying.
When I first started studying on a degree,
I would work Monday to Friday.
I would come home, I would
do the family kind of life,
and then I would just sit in front
of my computer
five nights a week.
And then as I finished that
and started my master’s, I realised the
importance of my health.
So, for me, running gave me
that opportunity to focus on my health,
and then from that I’ve managed to
build that up into
longer-distance running.
Go the distance.