I briefly considered skipping my uni graduation because it was a little inconvenient. Then I got there. 

By the end of the afternoon I’d cried several times, cheered for people I’d never met, hugged the professors I’ve developed professional crushes on and discovered that graduates get lifelong access to the University library.

I am SO glad I went.

The ceremony marked the end of a Graduate Diploma in Mental Health and Neuroscience, which I completed part-time over three years while still running my company.

I took it slowly because I wanted to understand the material properly and I’m very proud that I finished with straight HDs, a GPA of 7 and a University commendation for academic excellence.

The accolades are lovely but what I care about most is what they represent: I truly learned the stuff.

And God, there was a lot of stuff.

The curriculum was extraordinary. But somewhere among all that science, other things started to change too. I began to learn things I never expected when I’d enrolled.

Here are six of them.

1. The more I learned, the less certain I became

I originally went looking for this course because I was researching my next book.

The book needed a substantial scientific underpinning, and the further I went into the research, the more uncomfortable I became with how much I didn’t know.

Eventually I found this graduate diploma. It had exactly the combination of neuroscience and mental health I wanted and, crucially, could be completed entirely online while I continued running a company and living the rest of my life.

However, very early on I had the slightly horrifying experience of realising how enormous this field actually is. And the more I learned about neuroscience, behaviour and mental health, the less willing I became to make sweeping statements about any of them.

There’s so much health and neuroscience misinformation floating around online, some of it coming from people with enormous platforms and considerable confidence. I never want to add to that, even accidentally.

So that has changed the book I originally went to uni to write. It’s also changed the way I communicate professionally, the questions I ask, and how often I stop myself before saying, “Science shows...”

Usually, science shows something considerably more interesting than the simplified version anyway.

2. Reading something is not the same as learning it

I’ve always read a lot. Media stories, books, papers. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks and can spend a ridiculous amount of time disappearing down research rabbit holes.

But formal study showed me that reading something and understanding something are not necessarily the same thing.

The assessments were often where the real learning happened.

We often had to explain the same complex material to very different audiences, from scientific colleagues to teenagers or the general public. 

As a communicator, I loved that. 

It also exposed every shaky bit of understanding very quickly. 

And that process of retrieving information, applying it and translating it forced the knowledge much deeper than reading alone ever could. 

Sitting with a research paper until I understood it is what made me learn.

So was finding conflicting evidence and working out what conclusion could reasonably be drawn, or realising my argument didn’t hold up and rebuilding it.

I was learning how to arrive at the answer, rather than simply producing one.

Bec study notes – not just reading the content, learning it

3. Midlife is a brilliant time to become a beginner

The lovely thing about learning in midlife is that experience gives you an enormous amount of context.
Now in my 40s, I had somewhere to put all this new knowledge.

When I learned about stress physiology and decision-making, I could immediately see it in my decades of PR and crisis comms work.

Research into behaviour and emotion regulation found its way into how I think about communication, leadership, and relationships.

When I studied the developing child and adolescent brain, I thought about my nieces, nephews, godson and friends’ kids.

Learning about dementia and healthy brain ageing changed the way I understood what was happening to my mum, who has Alzheimer’s, as well as some of the preventative strategies that we can all use now that may support brain health across our lives.

Spending so much time with the research on depression, bipolar, anxiety, autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, PTSD, eating disorders, substance misuse and many more disorders also made me more compassionate in the way I understand other people, and myself.

I went in thinking I was simply layering neuroscience on top of what I already knew.

What actually happened was that it changed the way I understood almost everything I already knew. 

There’s also a brain-health reason to keep learning. 

Cognitive reserve in a term researchers use to describe the brain's ability to keep functioning well as we age or face illness or injury. Learning appears to help build it.

Education is one of several commonly used proxies for cognitive reserve, alongside things such as occupational complexity, cognitive activity and social connection. 

That doesn’t mean you need a degree to do that.

Learn a language or a new sport. Take piano lessons. Just pick something you know almost nothing about and let yourself be a beginner again.

Just pick something you know almost nothing about and let yourself be a beginner again.

There are so many ways to keep learning.

Bec with her mum

4. Your brain is not a solo project

There was a certain irony in studying mental health while sometimes making myself less mentally healthy to meet assignment deadlines.

My classmates felt this too, so at least I wasn’t alone.

Exercise stayed fairly protected for me, nutrition was good enough, and I continued my daily meditation practice.

Over time, I also became much better at getting outside for quick breaks during the day because I was learning, in considerable scientific detail, why things such as movement, natural light and time in nature were helpful for the brain.

The thing I seriously underestimated was social connection.

While study obviously demands many hours spent solo focussed on the work, I could not have completed those three years without my husband, family, friends, colleagues, classmates and the teaching staff who encouraged me when I was exhausted or overwhelmed.

At the beginning I frequently wondered if I was cut out for it, especially when many of my classmates already worked in mental health, psychology, or medicine. Then there was me with my music degree and a career in media and communications.

But it turns out, different strengths can be useful.

Someone could explain a medical concept to me that I was wrestling with, then half an hour later ask me how they were supposed to turn their research into a presentation anyone would sit through.

Now that I could help with.

There was something very reassuring about realising that nobody in the class knew everything. We just knew different things, and we got better by sharing them.

Bec with with her husband Dom

5. Stop skipping the ceremony

My previous graduation ceremony was 25 years ago, for my Bachelor of Music.

I’ve completed other tertiary study since then, but the certificates arrived in the mail and life carried on.

This time, I decided I wanted to mark it.

Still, on graduation day, work was busy and I could feel that familiar pull to treat the ceremony as optional.

Then I arrived and remembered what ceremonies are for.

People were helping one another into robes. Families were taking photos.

Professors who had watched us struggle through difficult material were there to see us finish. 

When somebody walked across that stage, the people who had helped them get there were cheering from the audience.

One woman graduating that day had managed university alongside a job, charity fundraising, and raising five children.

Another graduate looked to be somewhere in her late 80s, perhaps older, and needed some assistance crossing the stage.

The room absolutely erupted for her.

I had tears rolling down my face. I couldn’t clap hard enough.

There was this beautiful collective recognition that everybody crossing that stage had a story we couldn’t see, no matter if they were in their early 20s, midlife, or well past retirement. 

The ceremony gave all of that weight.

Honestly, as someone who’s been to and worked on a million events, it was slick. No notes.

6. The learning never ends

Then I discovered that as an alumna I have lifelong access to the University library.

If you’re wondering why a grown woman becomes emotional about a library membership, you need some backstory.

I grew up in a tiny rural town. One of my favourite childhood days each month was when the mobile library came to town. I'd be first in line to borrow the maximum number of books.

All these years later, somebody has effectively handed that girl lifelong access to a university research library.

Peer-reviewed journals. Textbooks. Archives. Research databases. If something comes up at work that makes me curious, I can go looking. 

What an extraordinary gift.

And now the degree itself is finished and I get to take all of that learning into the real world and see where it goes next.

But I’m absolutely not finished learning. I don’t think I ever will be.

Maybe that’s the bit I’d leave you with too.

You don’t have to go back to uni, collect another qualification or spend three years writing assignments at your kitchen table.

But what are you curious enough about to become a beginner again?

This is an edited version of an article originally published on Bec's LinkedIn. You can read the full article here.