My world of distance education

I haven’t disappeared. I’m still here and, more often than not, typing frantically on the keyboard, except I’m not typing my blog. I’ve been spending most of my spare time trying to complete a 2000 word assignment that’s due on Friday. It’s done now – apart from a final grammar and spelling check, so I can once again concentrate on my blog.


At the end of this year I will be three and a half years through a BA Communications. I still can’t quite believe I signed up for something that would take six years to complete! I have the attention span of a gnat and normally boredom would strike within the first six months. I won’t lie. There have been times that I’ve seriously thought of tossing it in. I have been known to scream at the computer. But so far I’ve managed to stick to it.

I never wanted to go to University after high school. Twelve years of education was more than enough for me. For twenty years I kept the same attitude. Then twenty years ago my then manager suggested I get some official qualifications. So I applied for and was accepted into a postgraduate course. I still find it amazing that I got a postgraduate diploma before I got an undergraduate degree.

So I discovered the world of distance education. It suits me perfectly. I can study at whatever hour of the day or night, in my pjs sipping a coffee or a glass of wine. I can watch TV while I’m studying, or cook the evening meal while listening to a recorded lecture. If I want to join in the online message board for each subject I can. If I want to ignore some of the idiotic postings I do. Distance education has been perfectly tailored for me.

I love researching. I could spend all day either on the Internet or with my nose in a book looking up facts. I do get led astray though and find myself looking up the most weird and wonderful things that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject I’m studying. But I’m enjoying the research and writing assignments, while tedious and difficult to start, aren’t that bad once I get into them.

I’m doing well at it too. My grades are good; my lecturers give me useful comments on my assignments. I have to admit I can’t remember a thing about the subjects once I’ve completed them – maybe that’s not such a good thing. I suck at exams, but I make sure to do my best on the assignments and they pull me through. At high school I did much better at exams, but my brain was younger then and I could retain more information for longer. Nowadays I have to check my facts, then recheck them and then recheck them again, and that’s just to write another sentence! It’s the same when I try out new recipes. I’m forever going back to the recipe to check what the next step or ingredient is.

With just over two and a half years to go I’m already planning what my next step in the fascinating world of education will be. I’m leaning toward a Masters in Creative Writing, but I’d also like to learn a language. I think I’d also like to learn to teach English as a second language. There is just so much information out there; I just want to jump in the middle and roll in it, absorbing what I can. So if I go missing now and again, I’m probably churning out another assignment or trying to study for an exam.