Do you feel like a student yet?

How do you become a student?

Sign up to a course? Well that's the first step but fundamentally that means you've completed some basic admin. I don't think that makes you a student.

How about attend some lectures? Well you can be in a room and learn next to nothing if you're not engaged. Attending lectures could mean you've managed to read your timetable-it doesn't make you a student.

Write assignments? I suppose that's part of it, but you can probably pass things with the minimum effort. I've passed things without learning much of note. It didn't make me a student.

Here's what I think - students are created from a desire to learn new things, to test the parameters of our own understanding and to take pleasure in the slow revealing of new knowledge. That isn't always straightforward, in fact it's often the exact opposite. We don't like uncertainty or feeling out of our depth. Well guess what? That's part of becoming a student too. It shouldn't be easy.

We have all at some point read academic material that we haven't understood but persevered nevertheless. That's how you become a student.

We have all juggled the academic and the personal and somehow managed both areas. That's how you become a student.

We have all regretted starting something but refused to give in. That's how you become a student.

But eventually, slowly, through progress that sometimes feels like root canal treatment, you increase your understanding.

And one day you wake up with a working knowledge of your topic and enough confidence to tell other people about what you know. Guess what? At that point you're a student.