Reflection

My motivation for enrolling on this course was very strong long before I ever applied – I wanted to study Japanese at University level, but had been out of school too long for my qualifications to still be valid. In this situation, I was faced with a choice between going on a Japanese course with lesser entry requirements or to find a way to gain access to university once again. Going the former route would not have allowed me to reach as high a standard of education and would not have actually given me a degree, which is necessary if I ever want to work in Japan. So, I took the latter option and joined the Access course.

While my qualifications are too old to consider ‘recent’, in reality I have only been out of education for 6 years, and since then I have spent a lot of time writing and studying various topics for recreation, so I did not expect the Access course to challenge me in radically new ways. For the most part, I thought it was be fairly easy; English, History and Maths are all subjects I was good at only a few years ago.

I consider it to be a positive experience that I was proven wrong about the ease of the course – yes, I had covered the majority of the content, but the workload and the pressure which came when I was actually required to start producing work was an eye opener. Had I gone straight to university or another learning institution; if I did not have this year to reacquaint myself with the life and demands of a student, I think I would have received a nasty shock.

This year also showed how valuable the support that tutors and fellow students can provide. This has been excellent group of people to work with, everyone was helpful, friendly and, with most us all feeling the same pressures of the course, helped to allay one another’s fears. As they say, a problem shared is a problem halved, and I will be very grateful if next year I have any tutors or peers like those here at Stevenson.

There are some minor ways the course could be improved, but it is hard for me to make effective criticism considering that I was hardly here for great chunks of time! Personally though, I would have liked to have had more discussions in class. Jerry’s class allowed a lot of time for discussion and the swapping of opinions and I thought Communications was an engaging and dynamic subject because of this. History, on the other hand, while interesting and well taught by Evan, seemed to be mainly listening to the facts rather than discussing them; it may be that the amount of material that needs to be covered is too great to allow this, but I do feel the course, particularly the British history unit, could be streamlined to allow more in-class participation.

What have I learned from this year? Well, I just finished writing an essay on Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for Scott, and one thing that taught me was this: “Don’t Panic”. There was a lot of work to be done this year, and at times it was daunting. But for most people, if you stick your head down and get to work then progress will be made, things will get done, and you’ll eventually emerge on the side of success.