Home-Based Learning: An Opportunity To Enhance Your Skills

By Diyanah Syafiqah

The COVID-19 outbreak has seen a drastic change in the way we go about learning. Schools and institutions, including SIM, have shifted lessons online in order to mitigate the virus spread and most importantly, to keep learners safe.

While virtual classrooms cannot replicate a campus setting, we can seize this opportunity to learn even more during this period. From developing effective study methods to picking up new skills, these are some ways we can make the best out of this situation as students:

#Learn Better
Staying indoors for a prolonged period gives us valuable time to pick up effective study strategies. Instead of pulling an all-nighter to cram a semester's worth of information, there is a proven method of retaining new knowledge and skills! It all begins with understanding how our brains are wired.

Studies have shown that your brain retains information best with ample rest and through spaced repetition. This means allocating breaks in your revision schedule with activities that allows your brain to be calm (hello naps!). Doing this allows your subconscious to do its magic of ingraining them into memory.

If spaced repetition is a foreign concept to you, watch this video by Ali Abdaal, a final year medical student from Cambridge University, on how you can implement it into your revision schedule:

#Pick Up An In-Demand Skill

In the past month, we have witnessed how the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation worldwide. As we stay home, businesses, organisations and schools have adopted collaborative online tools, e-commerce services and apps so that businesses and life can carry on as much as possible.

This reliance on technology will likely be the new normal moving forward; paving the way to a myriad of career opportunities in the IT sector. There will be a demand for individuals like software developers who possess the skillset needed to build such infrastructures.

If this sounds like something you're passionate about, get a head start with the suite of IT and Computer Science programmes in SIM here.

#Future-Proof Yourself: Build Your Online Personal Brand

If you're anxious about your job prospects after graduation, it'll be worthwhile to devote this time to boost it by learning to build your online personal brand. It's an amazing way of promoting your talents and passions to employers as they screen potential candidates online.

One of the ways you can do this is to start a blog or publish your views and experiences on platforms like Medium. If you're artistically-inclined, why not create a website that houses your videos, photos or websites you have created in your free time? It's also convenient to share these links during job interviews.

Another crucial aspect of personal branding includes knowing how to market yourself. Link these personal websites on your social media or LinkedIn pages. Doing so might lead to career opportunities like freelancing gigs!

This pandemic may be a worrying period but how we emerge out of it depends largely on the factors that we can control. We hope that the above suggestions will help you to tide through this period with more purpose, meaning and positivity.

For tips on remaining motivated, check out the #StayHome series on Instagram where some SIM students share their personal tips: