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Most people don’t come to distance learning because they have got lots of time.
They are already busy people and they make the decision because it gives them the flexibility.
The challenge I think is to clear some of that busy-ness out of your already
very busy life to say Right, I am going to be committed to this program
and I will need to be able to plan and organise myself.
There is probably a common bank of challenges; I think all students are challenged by lack of time.
Many students are challenged by competing demands of family and friends.
There is always that balance of work and life.
Some of the other challenges are that many students travel a lot;
they are very mobile in their work
so they might find they are constantly on a plane.
The technology that we use to deliver that training has actually been
really helpful for students who fall into that category.
Once they have got their head around how to use the learning materials they are spending a lot of time travelling,
particularly flying, so they can work off their laptop or their iPad.
The other challenges I suppose are getting an understanding of and support from their employer
so that their employer makes time or opportunities for them to be able to learn and to apply what they have
learnt and then translate that into completion of an assessment
Yeah, I think feeling like I was part of the course at the beginning was a little bit hard.
Just the distance and not having a classroom to go to was a little bit foreign to me.
Yeah I actually faced many challenges, many obstacles during my course.
My situation might be different to other students
but all the same I have one major obstacle which was my toddler, my daughter at that time.
So being a full-time mum and enrolling in a full-time course, that was something
that actually scared me and I thought this is impossible, how can I do it?
Well it is not an easy thing to take and early on I did feel very overwhelmed
and sometimes I thought of just postponing or doing it at another, or dropping out.
I think definitely time management was a big thing but the way the course was structured was good
because I kind of did have to pick up components or modules and put them down.
And focus on getting married, then focus on moving house
and then focus on having my baby so the structure I think was actually pretty good for me to be able to do that.
But yeah, juggling things, I obviously did the course distance learning while continuing to do a full-time job.
Then becoming a mum as well, it was quite hard to fit those things in
but it was great to have the support of the tutors.
I think as my time management improved, I felt more comfortable in my study routine and I stuck to it.
And the great thing about the TAA is that it is through OTEN and so it is very flexible.
so if we were having a bad day and my daughter was going a little nuts
I could postpone till the next day and that’s the great thing about it, that there is no set time.
The actual study is in my own hands so I was lucky enough that my daughter slept a few hours a day
and that’s exactly when I used to do my study.
Oh look, the challenges that I faced trying to, or going through the TAA program,
the big one for me was obviously time management.
Being a Regional Manager in a large corporate, as I said earlier I was travelling a lot.
In fact most weeks and being able to find the time to sit down in front of a
computer and do this on-line provided some real difficulty in the early days.
I also think it was a bit of an excuse to start with.
Another obstacle would have been, or just the challenge that I faced, was
was trying to decide on a workplace to do my project.
And the only accessible workplace that I had at that time was a Service Station
that was run by a family member so my teachers were fantastic in just
manipulating the nature of that workplace to fit
my needs and requirements for my project.
So that worked really well and it was very fun as well.
Anyone that has been through or is going through the TAA program understand that you need to
either need to be working with a real live customer or use the simulated programs on-line.
I have found working with a real live customer much more benefits
so I convinced them to be part of it considering that I was going to be working with them going forward.
I live in Adelaide so I didn’t get to go to some of the Conferences and Seminars
held over in Sydney but the tutors are always there, easily accessible,
would always call back if you rang when they weren’t there. They were there on email.
To have that kind of support to me was really helpful because I didn’t feel like I was on my own,
even though doing a distance learning course can sometimes feel that way.
so linking the business I guess or the business role
that I was in to working through TAA
there is a number of assignments and different programs that need to be done,
I was fortunate enough to be able to not only link the business I work with into that,
but also involve a couple of customers which allowed me to work at different levels
and the business also allowed me to utilise a couple of the people that work
for me which gave me the opportunity to incorporate coaching
and the assessment side of the requirements with TAA.