Accepting my Education degree

I’ve been to university twice now.

The first time, I was a young thing – only just turned 17 when I first walked through the Great Court at University of Queensland. I knew nothing – I didn’t even know how to reference properly – but I was young and anxious to learn everything. I completed a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Ancient History and History, but I also did classes in drama, philosophy, American politics and Ancient Greek language. It was a great time, overall. I loved the lectures and tutorials. Loved the atmosphere at UQ and loved learning.

A couple of years after completing that degree, I was back again, though at a different university and for a different purpose. This time I was at the Kelvin Grove campus of Queensland University of Technology, doing a graduate degree in Primary Education. It was a different type of university experience, much more focused on the outcome than the learning – though without the kind of lessons that would have made teaching easier.

Although there were early thoughts about going back to university to do a Masters degree, I finally settled on the fact that I was done with university. And now, with Squirm, I knew that was the case. I mean, trying to take a baby with me while doing a full course of study – well that’s just silly.

The problem is, well, I kind of like learning. When I was teaching, I would take on qualifications and courses that involved research and study. I may have grumbled about it from time to time, but I loved the focus it gave me. And I loved learning something new.

So, when I read about Coursera, it seemed kind of perfect. Free university courses offered from some of the best universities in the world. Respected professors taking advantage of online presenting methods to share their expertise with a much wider audience. Courses available in history, politics, computers, english, mathematics and more!

Before I really knew what I was doing, I had signed up for two courses which are running next year. The first one, which starts in January is an overview of Modern Global history. Which might sound a little dull to you, but really excites me. Also exciting is the fact that the course is being taken by Philip Zelikow, who has written books on a number of topics which interest me.

Later in the year, I’ll tackle Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets, which promises to be a hands on introduction to archaeology and might have me doing some strange things.

I promise to keep you up to date with the courses as they start and progress. Especially if I have to do any really strange things for the Archaeology course 🙂

What would you go back and study if you could study anything?

(Obviously, I’m not being sponsored by Coursera. I’m just quite excited by this)