Do you want to go through the change with me?
Near-failure in Week 1 of my new life
Pretty much everyone I’ve told about my fresh start in midlife has said either “I’d love to do something like that” or “Are you having some sort of midlife crisis?”; only time will tell if this plan is crazy or brilliant. I’m keeping a journal to track how the year pans out and you can read it and go through this change with me if you like.
I’ve always wanted to “do something” in the technology world since I was a teenager mucking about with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (remember those?) in my bedroom. But life took me in a different direction so, after becoming the first person in my family to go to university, my career developed in business and not for profits including the last five years as Chief Executive of a very impactful regional charity.
Despite many successes, I felt unfulfilled and still had that itch (you know the one?) to do something in the tech space before it’s too late. I considered converting to computer science, cyber security or web development but taking 3+ years out of work to study for a BSc degree full-time is just not affordable when you have a family and many obligations, and there were not enough hours in the day to study part-time whilst also working long hours in a top level job and having a home-life.
The breakthrough came earlier this year when I spotted that the UK’s Office for Students was backing the creation of new post-graduate MSc courses in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science in order to attract new, diverse people into this rapidly growing sector. Going right back to my senior school days I’ve always been interested in statistics (one of my A levels was Maths with Statistics) and much of my career has been in communications where interpreting and presenting data was crucial to making my case. Could I step away from work for a year to study full-time and combine what I know about good governance, ethics and supporting disadvantaged people with new knowledge about the true potential of AI?
If you’re interested I’ll write more another time about reaching the decision to change direction — in brief, lots of research, many debates and domestic discussions before taking the plunge. For now, let me tell you about Week 1 as a Masters student with the University of Hull — and my near-failure.
Not for me the traditional Freshers Week! I’m the type of person who likes to be prepared and I follow the mantra “never let your arse go where your mind hasn’t been first” (I tried to find who first said that but Google didn’t recognise the quote — surely I didn’t make it up?) so I’ve spent my first week avidly reading all the online info from Hull Uni about the new course. I’ve been like SpongeBob soaking up every bit of info I can find.
The course is blended, which means much of it will be taught through online videos and teaching as well as Friday workshop sessions on campus in Hull. My dread is that I might miss an online session or turn up on a Friday without having done the required preparation and find myself looking like an idiot. Most of my fellow course members are a lot younger than me so I’m expecting them to be quicker to learn and I don’t want to be the dull oldie who has to be told everything 10 times. I’m used to handling stressful situations, working with constant change and cramming a huge amount of work into a small amount of time so I reckon, if I prepare well, I can keep up.
I’ve signed up for extra classes and rooted out basic sessions online so I have some knowledge of Python (the main coding language we’ll be using). So I thought I was well prepared — until last night. After feeding the family dinner I checked my laptop and spotted some Slack messages. OMG — a group was talking about a website development course that had started live online 30 minutes earlier. How had I missed this — I thought it wasn’t starting for another two weeks?!?
Not to worry, I’ve got years of experience of thinking on my feet in top level meetings so I hastily logged on to the session. The first nail-biting choice was should I go in with the camera on or off — what would the convention be? I chose camera off — phew everyone else had their cameras off too.
Next I had to tune in to what the lecturer was talking about. Again, throughout my years in leadership roles I’ve often been thrust into a meeting on a subject about which I know little so I knew how to extract quick clues to catch up. I recognised the software being shown on the screen so I opened it on my laptop and furiously started copying the code being shared on the screen. I had enough background knowledge to get what the guy was talking about, but my stress levels were definitely up!
Then I hit the brick wall — the lecturer has something else open on his screen which he clearly expected the students to have on their screens too but I had no idea what software it came from. I was totally stymied. Still stunned at being so unprepared (“How did I let the nightmare scenario happen in my first week?”) I noticed the session was being recorded so I figured I would do my best for now, then go through the session properly once the recording was shared. But I still couldn’t shake off the feeling of being in a bad dream — the one where you’re running for the bus but never catching up with it then you realise you’re not wearing a skirt — arggghh!
Next the lecturer started talking about putting code into the Slack channel so students could paste it into their software. Which is when I realised that I was not actually on the Slack channel. I spotted an admin and asked to be added. The admin replied “Are you supposed to be in this class?” and I explained that I thought the session didn’t start for two weeks. Imagine my relief when the admin replied that there is, in fact, another session starting in two weeks’ time. Oh the relief — I hadn’t screwed up after all. I’m not sure why I got the original Slack message about the session last night but it was so good to leave the session knowing I’ll be back to do it at the right time.
My cortisol levels must have been through the roof but I eventually calmed down and was relieved that I hadn’t failed in Week 1. What will the next week bring? I’ll let you know!
