What I’ve come to learn as a Post Grad student

I've actually come to learn quite a lot since starting my post graduate studies – much more than I thought I would. I studied an undergraduate degree because I was forced to. I was told I HAD to get a university degree and that was that. So I chose to study something I thought I would hate the least. I ended up hating it either way.

Well clearly going into it with the attitude I had from the start did not aid things at all. But I just did not find the courses entertaining and helpful in a real way. Every module of learning in my undergraduate degree consisted of being fed dense theory and then having to regurgitate that info and also “apply” it. Even in my final year when we went out into the field to cover local stories I found that the theory followed me everywhere. We didn't just have free reign to go out there and do what we wanted, how we wanted to and then write up our story as we pleased. We had to follow it by the book and go out and do what the lecturer TOLD us to do and write up the story according to a set of rules. I do understand that certain rules do need to be in place; however we need to be able to work freely within those boundaries and exceed limitations. In undergrad I found the limitations to be suffocating and restraining to my imagination. I was so busy focusing on the structure and rules and trying to get them right that my stories became banal. At the end of my degree I absolutely HATED studying and even the thought of it gave me chest pains! I swore to never study again.

Fast forward to two years down the line and that expensive degree of mine has yet to reap any real job opportunities. Alas I decided that it was indeed time to go back to the drawing board. I enrolled into a Post Graduate Diploma course in Marketing and Supply Chain Management in the hopes that I could broaden my portfolio and make my CV more attractive to employers. I am currently in my second year of study and this is what I have learnt:

1. When YOU decide to study for yourself, it means so much more. It’s real. Especially when you've been in the real world and realise just how hard it is. You KNOW that you cannot just do the minimum and hope to just get by. Just a pass will not do. You WANT to do well and you want to do it for yourself. You don’t just want to make it through to keep your parents happy and your lecturers off your back. You are now accountable to YOURSELF and no one else. And when you are accountable to yourself, with your future on the line, you WANT to succeed, so badly. You will sacrifice to achieve your best!
2. When you are working, and then have to go to night classes after a hard day of work instead of going home to bed or out with your friends, you want to make these sacrifices worth the while. You are no longer a YOUNG full time student with all the time in the world and the hope of a bright long future ahead of you. You’re older now and are LIVING that future you dreamed of as an undergrad. And it is nowhere near as rosy as you thought it would be by now. If you are sacrificing your time that could be spent doing so many other things, time that is now so hard to come by and so very valuable, you will NOT want it to have all been for nothing. You do not want to have given up an early night after a really rough day of work and before an early morning only to fail the module. And for you to be left exactly where you were before you had made all those sacrifices. You want to come out of it with your degree/diploma and be able to go out and get a better job for yourself.
3. Also, you now understand the money it takes to study on a much more real basis. Before your parents were just paying the bill and you never really paid much heed to it. And they wanted you to get that degree so they’d better pay for it! You didn't notice the extra charges. You’d just add everything to your student account and the bill would go straight to your parents and it was all rather intangible to you. Now, you know exactly how much every single module, textbook and course hand out costs. You do not want to have spent all that money only to come out of it the same as you went in. You want to get your money’s worth and that means absorbing every single bit of information you can and getting the best possible marks and getting that degree/diploma and bettering your future thus getting a return on your investment of studying. You WILL work hard. And when you achieve your goals you will be all the more excited and satisfied about it.
4. And lastly, as I complained about in the beginning, undergrad degrees are so full of theory and shoving it down our throats and lacking in depth. In post grad you are given the chance to think out of the box and rewarded for it so long as what you come up with is actually possible and based on a reality. You are given the opportunity to put the theory into practice. It was in the practice of the theory and a further discussion thereon that I came to understand the theory, what it actually meant and how to go about putting it to use in the real world. When we had gone through the theory I thought that I had understood what was meant and expected by it, but when it was put into practice and discussed I learnt that it meant something entirely different. We were not told about what others had done and expected to learn from that. We were told to do it. But we were not just left there, after we worked on our own plans, it was discussed so we could see if we were on the right track and how to improve and what not. And it is through this practical hands on style of education that we are able to achieve greater understanding.