And…. feel the relief! Presentation complete, paper confirmed as submitted. Challenge accepted and hopefully conquered.
I originally said no more learning after my PGCE. Then I met a lovely lady offering a funded Masters and I thought one more learning challenge, step up from level 5 to level 7. I wasn’t wholly sure I could do it but I jumped in.
I was very fortunate to have a fantastic lecturer who completely understood the battle of a non academic writing academic papers and supported me so well. She wasn’t aware that I was still battling my depression so her support was undoubtedly amazing for me.
So three and a half years on, I await to find out if I have achieved an MA in Professional Practice and more importantly proved to myself that I can do it.
I never thought in school that I was clever enough to get this level of qualification. Now I’ve done it, whether I fail or achieve is not really the issue. I developed self belief on this journey and being able to write somewhere around 40,000 word research papers over six work-based learning modules is an achievement in itself.
Between 2006 and 2012, learning was a coping mechanism for me. Between 2010 and 2012 I was working full time with four children, doing my PGCE, I had four other level 4 online courses on the go. As well as all of that, I was writing my book and struggling with my emotional challenges even then. I didn’t have the capacity to learn any more until 2016 and this journey began.
Fail or achieve, I am proud of being able to do this. I wonder what challenge I will take on next?????