Learning Line

Here is my learning line ranging from when I was a child to the present day.

My learning line starts in Primary School, which was cut short when I fell ill (with a number of illnesses) and home schooling was the only option for me. The home schooling continued into my secondary school, until I was able to become half-integrated into a normal school life. My grades were significantly effected by a lack of school tutoring and thus I only achieved a total of 4 GCSE's, albeit good ones.

I then moved on to Witham College as I had some time before my A level courses began, so I achieved my New CLAIT and ECDL level 2 qualifications in the mean time. After that I attended Braintree College to do A levels in Photography, Graphic Design and Art, however this did not work out and I did not complete any of these A levels.

In my time out of college I got myself a part time job in an office, doing general office duties. While this was an opportunity to explore administrative and technical roles within a small organisation, the company owners tended to be a bit unreliable, so my time with them ended within just a few months. I also had a part time job as a retail assistant in Braintree Freeport which was useful for building my customer relations skills.

As going straight into work was not proving to be very fruitful I decided that going back into education would be the next best step, so I applied for a Media B-Tec at Braintree College. I thought this looked like a fun course and possibly something I would be interested in, however once on the course I found that it was not quite what I thought it was, and so I did not achieve this qualification either.

I then volunteered at a local Age Concern charity shop, which was a very fun and enjoyable experience, not to mention that it boosted my confidence in dealing with customers and working as part of a team. My social and sorting skills were practised a lot, and I feel that I learned quite a bit about organisation from working there.

I then decided it would be a good idea to go back to studying at college, so I once again applied to do a B-Tec at Braintree college, but this time to do IT for Practitioners. During this course I found a passion for website development, coding and other computer-related activities, making this course very enjoyable and worthwhile. I came out with the best grades and a real confidence boost, and also the stepping stone that I needed to get into University.

Before starting my course at university I had a few spare months, so I decided that to expand my skill set on web design and development I would set up my own small business. The business is Chocolate Sheep Web designs and I have managed to get a couple of jobs which have really helped me to learn new skills and different methods/techniques of coding.

Finally I am now at University doing Bsc Computing. The business is still running as a sideline project, however I am not pro-actively advertising it until my course is complete. I am hoping to learn even more about coding, web design and development and other computer-related topics whilst on this course, and already my social skills are improving greatly.

That's all for my learning line, thanks for reading :)