{"id":23195,"date":"2023-02-26T15:43:06","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T14:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/?p=23195"},"modified":"2023-05-09T09:16:12","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T08:16:12","slug":"nikitas-journey-from-english-teacher-to-aspiring-childrens-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/2023\/02\/26\/nikitas-journey-from-english-teacher-to-aspiring-childrens-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikita&#8217;s journey from English teacher to aspiring children&#8217;s author"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>This is a guest blog post from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bournemouth.ac.uk\/study\/courses\/ma-english-literary-media\">MA English &amp; Literary Media<\/a> student, Nikita.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_23200\" style=\"width: 251px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23200\" class=\"wp-image-23200 \" src=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Postgraduate student Nakita poses in a lime green shirt with a big smile in a selfie-style photo.\" width=\"241\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-125x125.jpg 125w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/05\/Untitled-design-7.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 241px) 100vw, 241px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-23200\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nikita<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Previously, I taught English in the Caribbean, when I moved to the UK I studied for my undergraduate degree, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bournemouth.ac.uk\/study\/courses\/ba-hons-social-work\">BA Social Work<\/a>, at Bournemouth University from which I graduated in 2018. I started my career in social work, and during that time I had my daughter. Whilst I was on maternity leave I started writing again, posting on my blog, and as my daughter has grown I&#8217;ve been telling her stories and even making them up for her. She&#8217;s three now and has started telling me her own stories, it&#8217;s a full-circle moment!<\/p>\n<p>I had a desire to get back to writing, dreaming of creating a children&#8217;s story that is published. So, I found that Bournemouth offered MA English &amp; Literary Media and was immediately drawn to the content of the course. It&#8217;s different from traditional literary studies, there are so many options to be creative, from learning about publishing to telling stories in the digital age &#8211; I knew this was the course for me. I get to express my individualism and the career prospects aren&#8217;t just &#8216;writer&#8217; I&#8217;m learning skills that could take me into publishing or journalism.<\/p>\n<p>What I&#8217;ve loved about the course and experience so far, is that everyone on the course is from such diverse backgrounds. I had a fear when the course started that my career and education is in Social Sciences, and here I am trying to write a Humanities course. But actually, the support has been overwhelming.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_23068\" style=\"width: 295px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/04\/Web-or-Social-image-The-Sir-Michael-Cobham-Library-Talbot-Campus.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23068\" class=\" wp-image-23068\" src=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/04\/Web-or-Social-image-The-Sir-Michael-Cobham-Library-Talbot-Campus-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"The Sir Michael Cobham Library, Talbot Campus\" width=\"285\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/04\/Web-or-Social-image-The-Sir-Michael-Cobham-Library-Talbot-Campus-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/04\/Web-or-Social-image-The-Sir-Michael-Cobham-Library-Talbot-Campus-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/files\/2023\/04\/Web-or-Social-image-The-Sir-Michael-Cobham-Library-Talbot-Campus.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 285px) 100vw, 285px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-23068\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Sir Michael Cobham Library, Talbot Campus<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Library team helped me so much in the first semester. I took the opportunity to produce an essay and have academics give me feedback on my current learning level &#8211; take every chance to improve at the beginning because the help is there! Throughout the last 7 months, I&#8217;ve astonished myself. The confidence I&#8217;ve gained has been through my own hard work with the support of academic and library staff.<\/p>\n<p>The content and experience have exceeded my expectations, I knew this was the right MA course for me, but the content of the lectures has been excellent. I&#8217;ve learned so much about Britain, made so many friends, and the content of the sessions has been so interesting. Culture &amp; Controversy has been a notable unit, hearing from many guest lecturers.<\/p>\n<p>If someone told me that 4 months into my Master&#8217;s I&#8217;d be applying for a PhD I wouldn&#8217;t have believed it, The support from my academics has been monumental in helping me apply for my PhD at another university.<\/p>\n<p>My advice to anyone considering this path would be to take every opportunity, immerse yourself in the community of staff and students, and look at all of the available funding. As a single mum I found that there was more funding available, as well as support with travel costs &#8211; do your research! You&#8217;ll get to enjoy a diverse cohort too, which contributes so much to the learning experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a guest blog post from MA English &amp; Literary Media student, Nikita.\u00a0 Previously, I taught English in the Caribbean, when I moved to the UK I studied for my undergraduate degree, BA Social Work, at Bournemouth University from which I graduated in 2018. I started my career in social work, and during that&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/2023\/02\/26\/nikitas-journey-from-english-teacher-to-aspiring-childrens-author\/\">Read more &raquo;<span class=\"sr-only\"> about Nikita&#8217;s journey from English teacher to aspiring children&#8217;s author<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":23200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669,1673,2777,1663,1664,12],"tags":[1779,3368,3370,3367,146,2160,3369],"class_list":["post-23195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pg-courses","category-journalism-english-communication","category-mature-students","category-postgraduate","category-returners","category-student-blogs","tag-career-change","tag-english-literary-media","tag-library-support","tag-ma-english-literary-media","tag-mature-student","tag-phd","tag-single-mum"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23195"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23370,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23195\/revisions\/23370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/student-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}