Category: Uni Life

5 things I wish I’d known before going into Third Year

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With third year coming to an end and my graduation looming I sat and thought about what I wish I’d known before I’d gone into third year. I won’t lie, this has been a tough year not just because the pressure was kicked up a gear at uni, but also because of stuff going on in my personal life. Either way here are 5 things I wish I’d known, that might just help future third years out!

1. You have a LOT of reading to do, get it done.

Trying to read all of my primary weekly texts, the additional theory, 30 secondary sources for dissertation, 15 secondary sources for my special study, and oh yeah MORE secondary sources for the other two modules. There’s a lot of reading to be done this year. Do as much of it in advance as you can and thank yourself later. Also, get used to the library, it’s going to be your second home.

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2. You will want to take naps like you’ve never wanted naps before.

I never used to be able to sleep in the day, at all unless I hadn’t slept at night (ahem, party animals in the flat next door). Now I feel like naps are the only way to keep me awake at night long enough to work on my assignments.

3. You’re allowed to struggle.

I spent most of my third year pretending to myself and my lecturers that uni was a breeze, that I had my shit together and of course I was ok. Fast forward to a month before my dissertation was due, I’m in tears in my supervisor’s office feeling like I couldn’t possibly get a good mark on this bit of work. For some reason I felt like I had to just project this air of confidence this year, maybe it was to make myself feel better? Either way if you’re struggling go and talk to your lecturers. Don’t make my mistake and wait until it all gets too much, it’s a stressful time and lecturers understand that.

4. Sleep is a wonderful thing, and during the final few weeks you will feel like you have never had enough. 

Yes I’m mentioning sleep again. Right now I have no sleep schedule. Some days I’ll be fine to be wide awake bright and early, go to the gym, work on my assignments and eat a healthy amount of food. Other days I’m writing until 2am, wake up a lot in the night or just don’t sleep at all. No matter how much sleep I do or don’t get I’m always exhausted. The brain is doing a lot of hard work right now people!

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5. You’re going to feel confused and excited and sad and have ALL OF THE FEELS, because this is a weird point of your life. 

I didn’t realise how all over the place emotionally I’d feel. On one hand I want to dig my nails in and never let go of uni ever because it’s the one place I’ve been happy to be in education. On the other hand I want to get all of my assignments done and out of the way and never spend another evening writing up references. I find myself getting emotional at the strangest times and other times I just shrug and get on with things. It’s a very weird time but I’m hoping, come July 27th when I officially have a degree it will have all been worth it.

One Down, Three to Go.

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Hello, hello, hello!

Sorry for wandering off for a few days, I’ve been up to my ears in assignments as well as acquiring a particularly nasty chest infection too. This week has been big in terms of third year, I had my final lecture on Tuesday, have started packing up the flat as we’ve handed our notice in for July and today I finally submitted one of my longer assignments, my piece on autobiographical poetry. I’ll never be a part of my Writing Women class again!!

I’ve been working on it for a pretty long time and, although I have absolutely no idea as to how it’s going to grade (obviously I’m hoping well) I’ve kind of just decided to live with it. I’ve done what I consider my best with the time and the pressures I’ve had. It’s done, gone and submitted and it actually feels like a quarter of the weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Now all I need to do is make sure that my dissertation is ready to be submitted in 10 days and then my other two essays after that. I will say that I think it’s kind of stupid to have all of our essays clumped together. It’s frustrating because we haven’t had the questions for two of them very long and, I suppose I am nervous about writing and finishing them both on time. BUT I am super determined to get it done. I can almost taste the freedom. So close, but so far.

Stress and Our Bodies!

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Now this isn’t the first time I’ve written about stress on this blog and I was pretty hesitant to write tonight with the fear of seeming like I’m moaning or one of those people who just drones on about how stressful their life is. BUT. I’ve realised lately, particularly through the lovely Twitter community that unless we talk about these things they won’t get better.

I’ve been reading again lately about mindfulness and CBT (which I’ve already been taught to do and helps me along). All I’ve heard lately from my peers is how stressed, exhausted and teary eyed we’ve all been because of the upcoming deadlines. A lot of people I know have been getting sick, not sleeping, random bouts of tears or having panic attacks. It got me thinking about stress and how much it can have an impact on people’s bodies and why we still won’t talk about it and just accept it as part of our daily lives.

Once again I’ve been tucked up in bed and had a sleepless night because my body has reacted badly to academic stress. This is roughly the third time I’ve been this poorly. The first was the year I was sitting my GCSE’s I was very poorly all year from a combination of my undiagnosed depression and stress from my classes and bullying. The second time was the run up to the big deadlines for my BTEC and A Levels. During my final (and most important) exam I spent the night up with sickness and a bad headache, and the proceeded to throw up in my exam…not my best moment. This time, of course it’s related to being in third year, and like my final year of school I’ve been poorly for most of the academic year.

I’m never usually this poorly when it comes to other types of stress. Working two jobs? Awesome. Keeping my house good at the same time? Done. But submitting essays and assignments is a whole different level of stress, even though I enjoy it and when I’m done I’m so proud. I’m getting better at trying to manage how the stress and how it affects my body but I do have a condition that’s hard to manage. It’s been proven that anxiety and IBS go hand in hand, which isn’t good news to me as my diagnoses is only a month old and I’m learning a lot fast in a highly stressful time in my life.

I guess what I’m trying to say (and I am writing this on only a few hours sleep) is that we need to realise that stress is a trigger for a lot of health problems and we need to recognise it. Over the summer I’m planning to look into mindfulness as a way to try and tackle my anxiety and therefore my IBS as well as carrying on to consider my diet, which plays a HUGE part in IBS.

I’m also trying to remember that the last 2 times I got sick and worried and cried a lot over my perfectionism in relation to grades (which may I add is only put on by myself, no one else puts pressure on me at all) it all turned out ok. I got really good results in my GCSE’s and my A Levels. I’m just trying to remind myself through all this that it’s been ok in the past and that I’m doing the best I can physically and mentally do right now and I guess that’s all I can do.

 

As always I’d love to hear from you guys, how to do react to stress? Do you have any tips for me? Leave a comment below!

Beautiful Brighton Conference and Chloe Break 

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Yesterday I was invited down to the beautiful Brighton by The Student Room to be the only student representative in the country to speak at an international conference for Social Media in Higher Education at CASE. 

Although I could have stayed the night before too, I decided to brave rush hour because I’d only just come back from being in Basingstoke and, you know, I do kind of like Ali ;). So I arrived for 9am slightly asleep but soon chatting to other people including the other people who were on my panel. For those of you who signed the ‘Save BBC 3 campaign’ Jono started and led that campaign, I was a little awestruck when I met him. 

The conference itself was good but also at times hard to understand because it was specific to some things I haven’t come across in my role yet. I tried to learn as much as I could, make contacts and generally enjoy the day. I didn’t realise what a big deal our panel was until we started it. We had a lot of people approach us through the day about our work on the student room. 

It was weird, I didn’t feel very nervous about what I was actually speaking about, instead, I felt like this was something I was confident to speak about and that took away some of the nerves. Well that and I already knew it was a nice crowd who wanted to help, that’s always a bonus. It was really well received thankfully and some lovely tweets went out after we spoke, including from one of my bosses who was also attending. 

   
   
Before I came back to the hosting hotel for dinner, I was able to check into my own hotel – MyHotel Brighton for the night. I was shocked to find myself in a huge double room, very chic and with one of the comfiest beds I’ve ever slept in. I was a little excited… 

  
Dinner was a chance to talk to people again, although everyone else was staying for the full two days, whereas mine was just for the day of my slot. There was some really quite hilarious chat on my table, including educating an American on British comedy he should watch. 

Jono and I both had early starts the next day and so were one of the first to leave. We were both surprised to receive chocolates and a card to say thank you from CASE for our work and taking the time to speak. The whole day gave me a lot of confidence in my own abilities to become a Marketing and Social Media Coordinator as a job when I leave uni. 

This morning, before I had to get a train back to London, I enjoyed my breakfast before taking a stroll around Brighton, the North Laines, The Brighton Pavillion and along the beach, taking in some Spring sun. 

  
On a personal note I’m proud of beating my anxiety over the head. I was so worried and nervous about going to the conference that I only had 4 hours sleep the night before. It was also the first time I’d gone away and stayed alone, but it was nice to have some time for myself in the hotel. 

Now I’m sat at the O2 with my Mum, sister and cousin waiting to see The Vamps with them (don’t judge me, free concert ticket and time with the girls). I’m absolutely shattered but at the same time really proud of kicking my anxieties butt and achieving something. Although, I am looking forward to getting into bed tonight without setting an alarm. 

Death by Dissertation??

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At least once a week I’m faced with a crippling fear and enormous self doubt as the result of trying to work on my dissertation. For someone who’s not done a dissertation before, they may think I’m being dramatic, it’s not that hard, right? Wrong. I honestly thought I was so behind but after meeting up with some fellow third years to work on a group project that they also feel as stressed and confused as I am.

My dissertation, something I so looked forward to, had turned into the bane of my existence. I’m now on my  3rd draft and have so much more to do, before it’s finished next month. I’ll have whole days where I’m like ‘yeah let’s get this done’ and then mornings like today where I just want to sit and cry in my duvet and contemplating printing my dissertation and then setting fire to it, obviously that won’t help but in my sleep deprived state it’s entertaining.

I never thought I’d be this stressed or worked up about a project I’d chosen to do. The last haul is definitely the hardest but I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve been working on the parts I love for a long time and now it’s come to editing and reading more critical theory (ENOUGH ALREADY!). I just keep chanting, one more month, one more month.

It’s weird because I love academics normally, I love to write. Hell, you guys are stuck with my notifications every day! I’m just excited to be done with these and finally start my book and have all my passion and energy do into fiction rather than quotes on Marxist Feminism and the role of women in the 1950s.

For any of you also tackling your dissertations, good luck! For those of you who have completed one, what do you suggest to celebrate when I finally finish!

My First Dyslexic Session

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Way back in first year I discovered that I am in fact, dyslexic, and quite seriously so as my educational psychologist report says. There was a lack of tutors for me to start tutoring when I requested it in first year, I then developed the attitude of ‘well I got this far without it so why bother’ partly to hide my feelings. I wasn’t embarrassed to be dyslexic at all, in fact it made my constant troubles with punctuation, grammar and spelling that have lost me so many marks over the years. All in all I just didn’t want another label and have to answer more questions because people didn’t believe me. I love to read, I have done since I was a little girl, people see Dyslexia as not being able to read or write but that’s not what mine is, it has such a broad spectrum! I guess I just didn’t want another label on me.

Fast Forward to a few weeks ago and I was struggling with my course work I didn’t have anyone to have a read over for me or help me understand what was going on with my work on a regular basis. Some friends would help but it wasn’t fair to keep asking when they had their own assignments to do. I decided to try and get the tutoring again, because otherwise my allowance from the DSA was just sitting there not being used. Because it is run by a different company I quickly got a response and was booked in to see a tutor.

I was nervous, I’m really independent when I work so it was something I’d never done before. I shouldn’t have worried, my new tutor is absolutely lovely and respects the achievements and way of working I have. All my sessions will be lead by me and what I want to cover, while my mentor will suggest things that make my life easier in terms of my writing. You never know, the blog might improve too! So, every week I’ll be taking work with me for us to look at and try to make it better, meaning I’ll hopefully get a better grade.

Fingers crossed!

Buried under assignments

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I’m writing this to you from my ‘desk’ that is covered in note pads, glasses, sticky notes, the occasional book (although most of them are in a pile on the floor next to me) and the hard work vibes I seem to be radiating. I’m writing a short post tonight because as you can guess from the title I’ve been working my butt off for the past few days to finish my assignment.

Because of my recent illness, I’ve been told stress is the worst thing for me right now. I actually laughed at the doctor when they said I need to be less stressed, because let’s face it the final part of third year is not a walk in the park BUT on with positivity. I managed to get to the gym this morning and work off some of the stress before having to go to an ultrasound appointment, which came back CLEAR! Yippie! Between and after I’ve been glued to my desk working on a 6000 word assignment, although the good news is that after writing it on and off since Saturday I am now sitting at 3740 words, so close!

Tomorrow will be for working on my dissertation which isn’t in as good a shape as I thought it was and needs a LOT of work doing to it before submission next week. I’m trying not to get stressed about it and instead working on just getting as much done as I can and taking regular breaks. That said, I currently cannot stand my dissertation, but I’m told this is a normal part of third year. Hopefully I can get at least 2 essays close to being done when I come back from Easter break and then only have 2 others to focus on. Definitely looking forward to 11.01 on the 2nd of May when all my assignments are submitted.

So that’s a little insight into my frazzled mind at the moment and my slightly frazzled life, now excuse me while I finally get to cuddle my hamsters before passing out in bed.

My Last Reading Week!

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Today marks the start of the last Reading Week (although now they call it Enrichment Week) I will have. Of course I’ll still have them while I’m a postgrad but I won’t have the free time I do now, because I’ll be working a full time job too. Dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuun. Now I’m in my third year I don’t have a choice but to use this week to get organised, productive and tick things off of my ever growing to do list. That said, I’m not allowed to go mad this week because of my recent diagnosis as well as having to deal with some spine pain.

It’s going to be good for me to have a week to go at things my own pace, do some things I enjoy and go and see my family at the end of it. I’ve already got more done over the weekend than I planned, simply because I was relaxed and just spent some time with myself, thinking about what I want and how I’m going to go about it. Being me, of course I have a to do list of all the things I want to do this week, which is mostly assignments I need to get cracking on or stuff I need to do around the house. I guess I really want to also take the time to take care of myself and make things easier in the long run. The more I get done this week, the less I have to worry about later on.

Of course, there might be some non course reading involved this week too…

Popping home!

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Lottie decided to sit on my lap for a cuddle, cute as hell but she’s the same height when I sit down! 

Today I jumped on a train with Ali and headed back to Basingstoke to surprise my family! My Mum was the only one who knew and seeing all their faces in shock was so bloody funny! It’s so nice to be home so for today it’s just a few lines. I’ll be heading back on Monday and I’m glad because I do miss my flat mates and a few friends. At the same time though seeing the little ones, my parents, grandparents and my dog (who has been the hardest person to leave even though she is now ignoring me!) but I feel ready to go and be independent I’ve proved that I can do it! So it’s only 2 weeks in but I’ve got through the hardest part and come back with a smile. So yes maybe I am ready to be 19 now and a little more grown up (eek scary). I just wanted them all to know how much I love them and after these few days at home hopefully I’ll be 100% sure I’m doing the right thing. Also don’t forget I get to take a lovely boy back with me as well, that always helps 🙂