10 May 2020

“Day seven hundred and thirty-eight of isolation. I long to see my friends again. I never thought I’d see the day, but I actually miss school. Oh, those were such care-free days. How I long for them.”

Hmmm, okay, so you gave writing a crack and maybe it sounded a little cliché.

What’s next on the agenda?

You could film yourself doing 200 pushups every day, chuck it on TikTok, and see what happens? Who knows, people might start hitting you up for personal training advice, or you could become one of those muscly social media influencers.

If that fails, next in line, read everything you can about the Russian Revolution, then teach yourself Spanish.

Then maybe do a short course in coding or graphic design. Because, why not!

There’s plenty of exploring to be done during isolation.

And no, that doesn’t refer to “exploring” your siblings’ secret diary entries or your parent’s wallets. We’re saying explore your interests. You know all those things that you’ve always thought looked pretty cool, or you said you’d love to try out one day if only you had the time?

Well, now’s the time.

Some of you may argue that jumping around from one hobby to the next every couple of days is a bad way to set about finding your passions. That to really learn to appreciate something, you’ve gotta spend the days, the weeks, the months (the years!) learning the ins and outs of it.

You’re not wrong there. However, iso doesn’t just help you decide what you want to do after high school. It can help you decide what you don’t want to do as well.

With all this time you’ve all suddenly got on our hands, wouldn’t it be better to dip your toes into a few things first, before taking the plunge? Spend a few weeks, or even a month trying out everything that tickles your fancy and see which ones stand out. Then, once you’ve found what you really like, you can really knuckle down and start learning/practicing as much as you can.

If you like being creative, this is your time to shine!

Never again in our lives will we find a better time to explore our creative sides.

Now’s the perfect time to whip out your paintbrushes, your guitars, your unfinished movie scripts, that cool idea you had for a stop-motion cartoon - and start chipping away at them and see what you can produce.

The beauty of creative pursuits lies in the fact that there is an endless number of things to be learnt. You’ll never know everything about music. You’ll never be a perfect artist and there will always be things you could have done better.

They’re absolutely perfect for isolation, because they’re inexhaustive.

And there’s so much info out there on the internet, so many online tutorials and people willing to give advice (and harsh criticisms on YouTube comment threads), that it’s not hard to teach yourself the basics in almost anything. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn without even having to leave your bedroom.

Get yourself set up for after school

You might come out of iso with a completely redefined take on life. You might spend your spare time in new and exciting ways and you might have a new appreciation for subjects at school that you used to hate.

You might have an entirely new plan for what you wanna do after school.

You might not, too and that’s okay. But starting to explore is just the first step of the crazy journey of life!

If you do find yourself dabbling in some creative hobbies, then one road you could potentially walk down once you’re done with school is studying with JMC Academy. They offer a whole range of various creative courses and degrees – from creative arts, to music, design, film, and more.

Other than the sheer range of courses they have on offer, the other great thing about JMC is that you don’t need an ATAR to apply, which means that no matter how disrupted your Year 12 studies get, you’ll still have a future with JMC.

 

If you wanna check them out, head over here. Or, you can see the full range of their courses here. They’re also going to be presenting at the Year13 Expo, so they’ll actually be able to answer your questions directly, live on air. We think that’s pretty epic, but hey, it’s our Expo. You be the judge! Wanna know even more about JMC? You can register for their Online Open Day here.