I hit a low point earlier this week and was drowning in a sea of seminars, lectures, workshops bibliographies, timetables, lack of parking spaces and general state of being dazed and bewildered. I even made a plea for reassurance on my Facebook status that I’ll get to grips with these things some time before I graduate. Immediately a number of friends came back with that reassurance. Here’s a couple of quotes:
Rob Merchant said, You’ll be fine. It takes students the first 3-4 weeks to get into the swing of things. By Christmas you’ll feel like an old hand, and by your second year you’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about.
Jane Templeman said, I remember that feeling. I just kept thinking that if they left me alone for just a while I could actually finish a task but instead all these things appeared on my timetable!
It seems to me to be part of a strategy for helping youngsters into university life in the first year. For most, if they do not have something organised then they do not do anything, so the answer is schedule loads of stuff, knowing they will cut stuff and not read everything: a shot gun approach. However the older students are far more committed, want to learn as much as possible and so expect themselves to do everything thoroughly, making overload a real danger.
I think the skill is not to take it all too seriously. Missing the odd thing is not fatal at this stage, you can always borrow notes. However tiredness is the enemy to be guarded against because with it quickly comes unrealistic discouragement.
Wise words and really helpful to me. One of my anxieties was related to being an older mature student, living off campus and the possibility of not having any sense of being part of university life. The reality is happily very different. I’ve become part of a group, most of whom are mature students living off-campus like me, but all in their 20s. Next week four of us are getting together to plan our first major essay.
I suppose I’ve only done two weeks in my degree so feeling better this weekend is definitely progress!
So I’ve completed my first week of lectures: four one-hour lectures and a two-hour Welsh language class. That class took place on Wednesday moring despite my timetable saying Wednesday afternoon. I got an email Monday night to tell me of the change which clashed with seminars of course! To my surprise, the magic computer sorted the clash quickly and I’m in a Welsh class of three students – great way to learn a language but nowhere to hide!
