How Your Community Can Help You Find Your Way

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon at my local community college, the fabulous Mosman Community College in Sydney. For the past three years I’ve been a tutor there, teaching creative writing, blogging and social media several times a term. It’s great! I get to meet the most interesting people, talk about stuff I love, and share what knowledge and experience I have.

But the open day was another thing altogether… what a lovely bunch of people! Tutors, students, and administration staff – we were all there for one purpose: to spread the joy of learning. In fact, that’s the college motto: Dare to Learn.

There is so much to learn in life and humans are so diverse and multi-skilled. Talking with some of the other tutors, I quickly discovered that I wasn’t the only one who found their vocation and true passion through an indirect route. A wine maker had once been a communications expert. A photographer had once been a financial consultant. A jewellery maker had once been a high court judge…

Me at the Open Day (Image by Christopher Maait, cmphoto.com.au)

Okay, so I’ve exaggerated a bit there, but you get the point. These people had come from a variety of backgrounds, and found their way to contentment by changing or slightly shifting careers, or as in my case re-changing careers. I went from reading English at the University of Birmingham, to taking the wrong turn of retraining as a solicitor, then getting back on track by becoming a writer. I like to think of it all as telling people’s stories, because when you’re arguing on behalf of your client as a lawyer you are in fact representing their story. Even so, I’m much happier now telling stories through fiction rather than fact, and that’s why I love teaching at the college…

People don’t always fall into the right career early on in life, but at your local community college you get to do a taster course, or a beginners’ course in something of interest. You get to make sense of the basics in a subject, to see if you enjoy it as much as you thought you would. You get to try before you buy and make a more permanent switch in your life.

At Saturday’s open day there were artistic demonstrations in pottery, drawing, photography, music and jewellery; informative displays in wine making, travelling, iPads and financial planning; linguistic discussions in French and Russian; and there were creative lifestyle demonstrations in Nordic walking, cooking and baking – hello to free samples of pancakes, quiches, beef masala and spring rolls!

Humans are so diverse and multi-skilled!

Naturally I bought chocolate with me – see the box of Celebrations on my table?

At the Mosman Community College open day.

Have a chocolate! Just answer a question first…

To get students excited about writing, they had to answer one of three questions to get a chocolate:

If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

What do you love most about reading and why?

Why is writing important?

I got so many different answers, but the funniest answer was from a young boy.

“If I were to write a book,” he said, “it would be about my dad.”

“And what would happen in your book?” I asked.

“He would go to work.”

Ha! Later in the day another father was reading through the answers and chuckled to himself. “That would be a very boring book,” he said.

It was a really fun day, with a focus on expanding minds and horizons. So if you’re interested in a skill or activity and haven’t yet pursued it, look up your local community college to see if they have a relevant course. If they don’t, you can always ask them to provide one – with enough interest they’ll design the exact course you want!

Whatever you do, don’t wait. Life is too short to have regrets, and most community colleges offer courses in the evenings or weekends to fit around your lifestyle.

As to my courses, next term I’m offering a blogging course and two creative writing courses. To attend just book here!