Never Giving Up

Education is something that I have struggled with. As a teenager, and as a working adult, you are encouraged to seek out a further education, as being educated is the only way for you to have any shape of career. My issue is with education, is that what I think I can deal with, and what I can actually deal with are two completely different things. I can easily become overwhelmed and have a habit of burying my head in the proverbial sand. Which then leaves me too far behind in whatever plans, to actually be able to do anything to fix it.

I have attempted further education multiple times, and each time I have found myself bowing out in utter failure. I used to do so well in education, especially when I was younger, and in the early years of high school. It would then get to. the point where I couldn’t prioritise what I needed to do first, so things become overwhelming. I remember being told to leave the Higher English class because my prelim exams and coursework, where not meeting the minimum grade. This is how a lot of Schools manage their exam results in league tables, give up on folk who are struggling. I am a constant writer, a bookworm since I could read, I was completely flummoxed by the fact that I couldn’t ‘do’ English. As the remarkable Ralph Wiggum says ‘Me fail English, that’s unpossible’. Because I had always felt that reading and writing was my strong point, I lost a lot of confidence. And, I think that helped make my confidence in myself fail, because if I couldn’t do something that I actually thought I was good at, what chances did I have of doing anything else?

I tried Veterinary Nursing, which I loved, but believed I was useless at it, so failed the course. It then became too expensive to continue re-submitting coursework, and then re-sitting exams, I ended up working in Greggs instead. That job frustrated me to no end, so I thought about what I could do next. Well, I loved art. So, I went to do that. Did the first year okay, but completely messed up the HNC twice. Just became so overwhelmed between doing all the coursework and then working at a call centre every evening. There was no time for everything, and I just struggled. I then started at my current job which is warehouse work. I started studying IT through the Open University. And it has been a rough ride, if I were to be honest. Again I misjudged the time I needed to do the work and have had to take a couple of gaps.

Well… it’s not over. Not yet anyway. I have applied to start another unit, slowly continuing my work towards my degree. The good thing about a place like the Open University is that they try to promote the idea of life-long learning, and that if people need to take breaks it’s okay. They have been super supportive when I said I wanted to go back, and there was no judgement, no negativity, just lots of sources for if I do run into bother again. Which, is great. I also had advice when selecting what course I wanted to pick. Normally, part-time learning at the Open University is taking 2 30 credit units per year, where each 30 credit unit is an estimated 10-15 hours a week of study. This is where I had an issue, as I work full time, more if I do overtime, and the time to study 20-30 hours a week was impossible. Hence, my previous failure. One of the advisory team at the OU stated that maybe I can try one unit this year, and see if that goes better.

So, that is where I find myself. I am still working away full time, and tomorrow, the website of my new course opens. I am studying is Communication and Information Technologies. I received the books on Saturday, and I am pretty excited to learn something new. The difference is, that I have already opened up dialogue with the support team, in the hope that no barriers crop up this year. So, that is already an improvement from the last time I studied. Onwards and upwards, as they say.