Welcome to Innovative Learning Week!

We hope that you will enjoy reading about the experiences and reflections of a number of Edinburgh ODL graduates through our daily blog posts this week. We also hope that this will encourage you to get involved in this careers ‘event’ by sharing your own views through our daily Twitter discussions.

ODL students and graduates tend to be a fairly diverse group of people. You will each have your own particular motivation for embarking on a distance-learning degree. If you are already established in your chosen field, you may be focussed on developing particular knowledge and understanding or to specific skills that will help you to progress in a particular direction. Some of you however may be considering a complete career change, or aiming to secure your first graduate job. Others may perhaps be primarily driven by personal interest or your love of an academic challenge. Whatever has motivated you to study will impact on your hopes and expectations about how your degree may influence your future.

We thought that you would be interested in what Edinburgh graduates identified as some of the benefits from their ODL experience, so we asked the following questions:

• How has your ODL degree influenced your career development?
• Has it benefited you in any other ways?

 Here’s what they said:

 Career influences a general nature included:

• I got a new perspective on things, and I also got more interested in academic work.
• Greater career opportunities, possibility of a PhD.
• It made me more literate in the science, politics, and economics of environmental issues and gave me an insight into environmental policy-making.
• It led to me getting elevated at work.
• It provided a useful credential, a focal point for thinking and discussing options.

Professional skills were developed and self-confidence increased:

• Hard work, leadership, planning and the articulation of scientific issues.
• Developed research and writing
• Self confidence in academic/professional abilities
• It has benefited me greatly in terms of my understanding of more advanced techniques relating to my work in disease diagnostics.
• The information and knowledge I gathered during my time at an ODL student at the University of Edinburgh enabled me to critically assess common industry practices and to form my own opinion about things as well as to substantially defend it.

The opportunity to develop their professional network was valued:

• It helped with a small but useful network of people, and provided a talking point when meeting new clients
• Gained new contacts
• I have made acquaintances both with the university staff and former class mates. These connections I believe will be helpful as I continue developing in my career

For some, it changed how they were viewed by colleagues:

• Career development has included position and respect at my work place
• Have greater proven expertise in the team; could juggle career and study

Potential future employers will be impressed:

• I think participating in an online degree while working full or part time shows a lot of commitment and will give future employers the impression that one is disciplined and determined.

It has offered a valuable stepping stone for those embarking on a longer academic journey:

• It gave me a foundation in environmental issues which helped me to decide the topic of my PhD.
• It has taught me about the experience of being an online student and ways in which animal welfare can be taught.
• Very positive influence, as I now have broader career options which involve lecturing and research both which I’m very interested in. I’m currently preparing to enrol for PhD studies.
• Prior to my ODL course I only had an Advanced Diploma. It has helped me to gain acceptance onto a Wildlife Management degree.

 As you progress through your degree course, you should start to recognise an increasing number of benefits from your own experience.  The comments above may help you to reflect on this. Why not share your views with other ODL students on Twitter?

I look forward to reading your Tweets – twitter.com/uofedcareers   # EdODLcareers

Follow Career Connect to access our next Innovative Learning Week blog post.