New Beginnings
For those of you who have been here from the start, this may well be the last time I post for a while, but if this is your first time we may as well get through the introductions. Hey, my name is James and I’m a first-year student currently studying Cyber Security and Behaviour at WSU (Western Sydney University). One of my subjects requires me to upload blogs to develop an understanding and feeling of how people can live, learn and work on the world wide web which is especially relevant in the present world and for those of you that have been affected by the world-wide pandemic, Covid-19. This meant that you were forced to remain at home and work via social media applications and programs such as Zoom or post blogs such as this one, as a form of communication as face-to-face interactions were strictly put on pause. In my case, I had to live, learn and work on the web as a student and this is my story of what I did as a student, and what you can take from as advice if you find something interesting.
The transition
After a year of electrical engineering at UTS (University of Technology Sydney), I decided that it wasn’t the right subject for me so I transferred to my current university to study cyber security. It was the right choice. For those of you reading whom are getting ready to enrol in a university course or are reconsidering your current university course, I would like to advise you to find your passion. Research about the course and find out what content there will be during the course and semesters to come. Don’t do the course just because your friends are doing it as well, I myself have made that mistake and in doing so, I wasted most of my time doing something I didn’t really enjoy, even though I was still getting the grades. As for myself, I like working with and from a computer, as I am a gamer that enjoys the company of my beautiful setup, and I’m sure at least half of the people in my course/subject play games regularly. This helped my consideration in moving from engineering (a very comprehensive and heavy mathematical content) to Cybersecurity as the primary content involved coding and/or programming, which meant sitting at a computer most of the time. This to a gamer, was basically a day-to-day life.
Settling In
At first, my impression of the new course was on the questionable side, where I found myself contemplating again whether I have made the right choice, nonetheless I continued until the census date to see whether my opinion would change. The following few weeks after transferring into the new course, I began to find comfort and joy in what I was learning and one of subjects I am currently enrolled in is called ‘Living, Learning and Working on the Web’ or LLWW for short. If you haven’t already guessed, this subject requires me to get involved with the online world, interacting with new concepts such as creating blogs such as this one. I assume this subject is made to prepare me and provide an understanding of how people such as social media influencers or website developers use the web in the professional context, something I may need in the future following this course. Now that this semester is coming to an end, its safe to say that I’ve slowly grown accustomed to the potential the web has to offer, such as receiving feedback on blogs by readers such as yourselves which I can then use to improve my grades and further develop my understandings of the world wide web.
Working online
While this course shares many similar concepts to that of my previous course of electrical engineering, this course on the other hand, also provides many unique approaches towards learning such as publishing my work onto the public domain. This was a little new to me as I never expected a course such as cybersecurity, something that is usually performed in a private manner, take a spotlight and shine it upon itself where it can be seen by the world. What I’ve learn from working online is that there will always be people that can help you in a beneficial way such as providing feedback on your blogs where positive feedback will show you your strengths, and negative your weaknesses. I found this out by posting blogs such as my previous one and this one, where I would interact with the readers as well as people within my unit, where we have a Facebook group to post our blogs to receive more feedback. This was the main place I receive feedback mainly because it’s the place where all the people in the group are fellow students I work with, especially those which I collaborated with for a campaign a couple weeks ago.
In the end, I very much enjoy being in this subject and even more in the course, as I am very fond of learning new skills and concepts with perspective to the online digital world considering I basically live in one every day. What I would advise readers such as yourself to take from this reflective piece, is to not be afraid of putting yourself out there for the world to see. There will be people there to give you advice of what you’re good at, which is something to keep, but also what you’re bad at, which is something you can adjust to better yourself. I myself have enjoyed working in the public space and will hopefully continue with this concept in the future as it is a great way to interact with people and see what their opinions could hold for me. Thank you and I’ll catch you guys next time!
