Week 1

 This week back was my first week back to study after a break of several years. There was a lot of information in my three units so far and while it has been a overwhelming, I am prepared to try my best.

Knowledge Gained - this week I learned a lot about both the university in general and my course specifically. The scavenger hunt was a particularly useful exercise because it helped me find where a lot of helpful tools will be for my university journey. There is an area of the student hub that helps you to look at your degree through the years and help plan your studies. I think this will be very useful to me. In terms of my advanced bachelor of interior design, the two other units that I am enrolled in were very design specific obviously, and I learned a lot of new terms to do with sketching and drawing interior and exteriors.

Challenges - I have faced several challenges already in my first week of study. In my other units I felt kind of like a fish out of water, I have little to no artistic experience and it feels like a lot of my peers in the units on some level have already been practiced at drawing. I also have a very different learning style to my lecturer, who is more of a go with the flow type of person, and I prefer a lot of structure and specific instructions of what to do. This will be a learning experience for me to practice other ways of learning new information. I am also learning to juggle my time. As well as full-time study I am hand raising a kitten that I’ve had from two weeks old. He requires bottle feeding every 4 to 6 hours which means that my sleep schedule is regularly interrupted.

Successes & Strengths - I have recognised my ability to not become too overwhelmed when I have a lot on my plate. Time management is something that I am usually good at and I am not a big procrastinator. I was also able to not become too stressed or catastrophise too much, which I can tend to do when I feel like something might be too hard for me.

Application - I can apply what I have learned by utilising all of the resources that the university has to help me with my studies. I already have a LSOA which I can use to accommodate any difficulties that I come across. I also intend to try out several digital drawing programs that the course coordinators have recommended to me, so I know for the future what is best for me to draw on.

Areas for Improvement - I would like to further develop my knowledge of basic drawing and sketching terminology and skills. I would also like to get ahead in the reading for some of my units as this will help me feel more prepared during my lectures.

Goals - my goals for the coming week would be to read ahead in the assigned textbooks and other readings for my units so that I am better prepared for the week. I would also like to experiment using the different platforms for digital drawing.