What I have learned in 2016

2016 has been a whirlwind of a year for me, I began my degree at the beginning of the year and have been on an intense learning curve for the whole year in addition to this to improve my skills and knowledge in coding. I have pushed myself outside of my comfort zone when it comes to meeting new people this year and because of that I have met some great people.

As part of my degree it explains the need to review what you have learnt what you still need to improve to be able to move forward so here are a few things I have learnt this year.

I make an excellent student under the right circumstances

I have now completed a full module in my Computing & IT degree which I passed with distinction and I am now currently part way through my next two modules with all the assignments coming out over the 90% mark which I am very pleased with. These marks have made me wonder why I did not do as well as I am doing now during my GCSEs as I was in the top classes for everything and I deduced that it is all to do with the following circumstances under which I am learning for why I am now a successful student:

I got to choose a subject I am passionate about

At school, there were certain subjects that you had to do and you only got to pick 2 subjects of your own interest (In my case it was Art & Design and Media studies). Looking back, there was only two projects which I got excited about at school which happened to be in the subjects I picked and IT back then was learning to create word documents and excel sheets which even though is very important, it isn’t the most exciting. Computing & IT is a topic that has interested me since I was young and had I known more about the course possibilities during school I would of most likely studied it at an earlier age.

I can work at my own pace

I attended quite a large secondary school so there were around 20-30 students per class and when a topic was discussed the class would stay on that topic until it was understood by every student so this would cause a delay in how fast the information moved on. I find learning with the Open University much more suited to me as by studying independently when I understand a topic I can move on straight away without waiting for others to understand and if I do not understand a topic I can do my own extra research until I do without holding anyone back.

I am older and understand the importance of learning

At school age, it is difficult to understand why your studies are so important and the role they will play in your later life. I have always been a very independent person who likes to find her own way in life, while this is one of my strengths now, as a child it could frustrate those around me as rather than just doing as I was told, I would question why and push the boundaries. This meant that instead of doing homework and studying that I did not understand how important it was at the time, I would be spending my time on other endeavours. Now being older and wiser, I can see how important it is.

What you know may not be the correct way

I have been using HTML, CSS and JavaScript in my day to day job for years and felt I had a good grasp of it but I was wrong.

Early in the year I realised that what I had been taught on the job was a very outdated way of working and was not best practice. Also, the code I used day to day was only a tiny proportion of code in which could be used, there were so many more possibilities out there.

Since then I have retrained myself using online learning tools to make sure I am working the correct way and to be able to research better ways of working day to day.

Twitter is an excellent tool for finding out information

Up until this year while I did have a twitter account, I never quite understood the purpose of it. However, beginning of this year, I thought I would give it a proper try and I was not disappointed.

I attended my first meetup this year back in February and began following the twitter accounts of the organisers, the venue, those who did talks and those who I had spoken to and built up my network that way with every event I went to. Most events and workshops that I have attended this year I found out about from twitter and had I not decided to give it a proper try I would never have known about them.

For those in the market for a new job it can be helpful too as many companies now have a dedicated twitter page just for job opportunities.

Networking events and learning workshops are excellent for learning and meeting new people but go alone

As an introvert, I can find networking and meeting new people quite stressful as I find it difficult to begin conversation with strangers without feeling awkward so when I began going to some meetups I took a friend with me to take some of the stress away. However, I found myself not really getting involved as much as I should have so if I wanted to get what I wanted from these events I had to be brave and go to them alone.

Now after several networking events, meetups and learning workshops all attended by myself and only one minor occasion where I had to get out fast, I can feel myself getting slightly more comfortable with them.

If you suffer from similar hang-ups I have found the following useful:

·       Get there early as it is less daunting than walking into a room full of people and it is more likely there will be stood alone that you can begin speaking to.

·       If the event is at a bar or coffee shop, speak to the person next to you in the queue as they aren’t going anywhere fast and they may just be able to introduce you to some people.

·       Be honest with those who you are speaking to about your situation and even if they cannot help, they may be able to put you in touch with someone who can.

What I still need to work on in 2017

Even though I have come on leaps and bounds, there are still some areas that I need to work on which are asking for help and public speaking.

While in a professional and academic setting, I will quite happily ask for help as I have deadlines to meet, but on a personal level where I am only accountable to myself I tend to just persevere rather than ask for help. While this sometimes has its rewards as there is no better feeling than overcoming a problem all by yourself, it can also make you feel that there is no one to turn to.

To combat this towards the end of 2016, I registered for a mentorship programme on to which I have been recently accepted for this year where I will be assigned a mentor who I can turn to for help and advice towards reaching my long-term goals.

Another area I struggle in is standing up in front of people and speaking. I am not sure when this problem came about because as a child I had no qualms about standing up in front of people and talking, singing and sometimes even dancing too but now I seem to shiver with nerves.

The only way for me to combat this issue is to desensitise myself to it, so this year I am going to be thinking of subjects to do talks on at some of the events I attend.