Learning and Skills Development for higher education and work: Week 1

The time has come where, as a mature student working close to 50 hours a week in my non-university life, I embark on the ego-driven journey of achieving a first class degree in Web Development. I remember signing up to the course and thinking to myself that this would be the most profitable route in terms of my career and would also serve my part-time work as a web-developer well; little did I realise that the first semester would contain very little towards web-development and would instead focus on improving my skills for work, something I’m sure my employer would not begrudge but something I found a little degrading. How wrong I was.

The first workshop began with a look into blogs, a form of online diary. This introduction into an unknown amazing world led me on a startling journey through the “blogospehere” taking me towards followers of subjects as diverse as monkey farming and self-mutilation, whilst other “bloggers” commented and shared a mutual love for literary heroes such as Oscar Wilde and artists such as Roy Lichtenstein. The deeper I delved the more shocked and joyous, in equal measure, I became.

What started as a perceived pointless and futile meander through improving my work skills actually became a fabulous and exciting adventure through some of our greatest heroes’ works. I have traveled the globe, I have walked in another’s shoes, I have known what it is like to survive the greatest tragedies and live for a thousand years, and all whilst sitting at my computer. Bring on the next workshop.