Being human is being curious, keen to learn and to develop. Getting better at what we do, learning completely new things or setting goals as part of our own development journey – personally or professionally. I’ve always enjoyed studying and feeling like I’m actively educating myself on various topics. Since graduating from university a decade ago I’ve been keen to study, ‘properly’, but it just hasn’t happened, and I haven’t taken the time to do it.
But then came the pandemic. And all that spare time sitting at home, feeling worried / confused / lonely / bored / non-productive. I realised I wanted to do something more valuable and felt it was the perfect time to educate myself in a more structured way than just reading on my own.
These days there are fantastic opportunities of online education on platforms such as Coursera. And in Sweden, we have the huge privilege of free education. I didn’t take advantage of this for my Bachelor as I did my degree in the UK, but I’ve been meaning to explore the wide range of courses the Swedish universities offer online. And so, mid-pandemic I did.
New perspectives
Whether you’re learning something completely new or exploring a topic you’re more familiar with, you’re always going gain new perspectives. Either from reading something new, challenging your mindset or getting someone else’s point of view presented to you. So surely, doing a course in anything will benefit you in some way? Maybe it could even be seen as a sort of self-care?
I opted for something I’m already very interested in – environmental writing – and found a comparative literature course in ecoliterature that I got accepted onto. A chance to broaden my horizon and read books I may not have found or chosen myself, at the same time as I got a chance to explore the importance of literature when it comes to investigating our role in nature and in our environment.
To pass the course we had to write an essay based on some of the novels, poems and essays we’d read and I wrote mine exploring what type of literature may be best suited to encourage us to take better care of our planet. I won’t dwell on that here (I may do so later in a later blog post) but what I wanted to highlight here was the joy of getting an opportunity to learn and develop, as a student / learner / person.
I can truly recommend it. Whether it’s a course in French, art history, ecology, philosophy or pottery. Whatever it is, it will most likely be time well spent. To learn something new, to meet some new people, or even just to avoid being bored at home during a global pandemic.
p.s. if you’re interested in the course’s literature list, let me know and I’ll pass it on. Some of the books you can find in English were: The Vegetarian by Han Kang, The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh, and The History of Bees by Maja Lunde.
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