Many of us already working and having left school years ago are faced with the challenge or opportunity of having to acquire new knowledge to stay up to date within our professional. We may even have to move profession as the need for certain jobs dwindles or dies as other industries thrive or are born.
The day you stop learning is the day you die. We are always learning so all learning for a ‘new’ reason is doing what we do daily but formalizing it and focusing it toward a specific objective.

My example is an Arts Student moving to Business Studies, post degree, to the specialised steel industry, fairly complex, to the Information Technology sector and finally to consulting and writing. After the more formal part my employers sent me on various job related course but also I did a lot of learning on the job. The IT sector (30+Years) is constantly changing. Learning is an opportunity with challenge.

Obviously your Adult Education will have an objective, either financial or personal betterment. Thinking back to my school days, although successful, I wasted a lot of opportunities. School was what had to be done and did not a specific objective. Luckily the penny dropped just in time and I recovered. As an adult learner you should have none of these blocks. Indeed, rather than blocks, you have several distinct advantages. You will be self motivated with a wealth of experience and knowledge available to you as a source of learning. You are more conscious of your need to know or complete something. With ‘pre work’ learning we tend to follow the subject matter. Now we are more mature our learning if focused on the solution to a particular task or problem. It is targeted to an objective. We are self driven not obliged to do it because we have to. There are no external carrots or sticks.

Many find, as I did, that returning to education they will question what they were ‘told’ previously and question their original understanding. Doing this is of great value. However you only get out what you put in. Take an active role and keep an open mind to allow you to question your preconceptions and those of co learners and educators. If you have a specific job in mind your studies should be suited for it. If not you must carefully choose the correct course(s). You don’t want to waste time and money and end up with useless qualifications.

All success comes from within. Educators can only bring out what you are capable of. It is not going back to school. At school we were empty shells. Now we are mature, self-driven, experienced and open minded adults. We are in control. We will get out of our Learning what we have set ourselves to. Decide and summarise what you want to achieve. Plan how you will do it. Do it. Recap and fine tune to keep up to date.