Sue Turnbull

Student spotlight details

Wanting to pursue her passion for art and galleries in an academic context, Sue decided to enrol on a short online course about the Impressionists. Due to the flexible structure of the course, Sue was able to study when it suited her, so she could balance her study with part-time work and caring responsibilities.

'Before I enrolled on the course I was working part-time. Despite still having non-working days, I still had lots of other commitments with family caring responsibilities and everyday life.

'I have always been interested in art and enjoyed visiting galleries. However, I wanted to do something a little more academic to give me a more rounded understanding of painters and their paintings. I wanted to appreciate them more, rather than just "liking" them. So, I decided to enrol on the short online course, The Impressionists: Painting Modern Life, where we studied the work of a variety of artists, from Cézanne and Monet, to Van Gogh and Gauguin.

'The most challenging aspects of the course were time management and essays. It's been a long time since I've written an essay (at least an academic one) and I was worried I might struggle a little. Still, our tutor Jan Cox was very encouraging, so writing the smaller initial essay was helpful because I was able to do that and it took the fear away.

'Beyond that, there was so much I enjoyed on the course. I enjoyed discovering new things and also learning how to look at paintings in a different way. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on women impressionist artists – so much so that I was inspired to take a detour on my way back from a holiday abroad, and travel to Dulwich to see the Berthe Morissot exhibition before journeying home "up north". I didn't know anything about her before the course – but I'm a huge fan now.

'In the near future, I would like to enrol on another short online course, this time on Art Nouveau. I have bought many gallery books since the course and other books on various artists. I now feel that I can read them with a different viewpoint and have a more critical and enquiring mind. I just need to live until I'm about 600.

'To future students, I would offer these words of advice: enjoy it. Don't panic, but you do need to make sure you have some "protected" time to engage with it fully and get the best out of it in real-time. Small bite-sized pockets of time are probably more effective than spending a whole day studying – they were for me as I can have the attention span of a fish sometimes!'

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