Having made it through first year, Georgia Dawson passes on her survival tips to the new crop…
My old Headmistress once said that to survive university divide your day by three; eight hours of work, eight hours of play and eight hours of sleep. I can tell you now This.Does.Not.Work.
Most people I know spent first term assuming university life was like a holiday in Kos; drinking all night and sleeping all day; lectures and seminars were a distant reality that didn’t really apply to you.
But first year is not all about partying all night and scraping yourself off the floor to sleep in your lectures. There is some work that you could (or should be) doing. After all, first year goes by in a flash, one day you’ll wake up and realise I’m a third of the way through my degree!
I didn’t really know what to expect from my degree in my first year. There are so few contact hours and knowing you only have to pass first year with 40% meant that I definitely delegated more than a third of my time to the social side of Uni. After all it is important to be sociable, university is not just for academia but also to emerge into the real world a well-rounded person, social skills included. However, you might also want to actually complete your degree and so in order to that maybe calm down on the 10 day benders?
The issue with History is that because of these few contact hours people assume there isn’t much work to be done, but a lot is independent. Trust me when I say turning up to a two hour seminar having not read any of the expected reading is one of the hardest things you will ever experience. It is very easy to fall behind so don’t be fooled by those eight hours a week on your timetable. By all means go out and enjoy the special madness saved for TP Wednesdays, but set aside a few hours a day to wade through some of that reading. You’ll thank me when it comes to exam time and you have a pile of readymade notes available to you, it’ll save you from the pulling-your-hair-out exam stress stage. Trust me.
Don’t worry if you find the lectures go too fast for you, most lecturers provide podcast versions of the lecture on ELE, but don’t be fooled into thinking you can bunk off most lectures and catch up later. Lecturers like to play a little trick every now and then where “technical difficulties” prevent them from uploading that crucial podcast. So don’t get left behind because you wanted that extra hour’s lie in.
With essays, do go to those feedback sessions. Sometimes I know it is easy to think you’re the bees knees when it comes to essay writing, after all, who do they think you are, you did well at A-level, you’re an expert on essay writing now! Don’t be a fool. Degree level is very different, just roll on by your tutors office for a ten minute conversation and you’ll be amazed how much more honed your writing can be.
Don’t get me wrong, first year is probably one of the easiest academic years you will have experienced since before GCSEs, for once there is the lull in the constant pressure of achieving your absolute best. You can do the bare minimum to scrape a pass and see another year at Uni. However, it is worth pulling your finger out and using this year as a practice run for the real thing, it’s only a matter of months until you start to care again about your work in second year. By all means go out, get drunk, and be hungover in lectures. Just attempt to open a book every now and then, you’ll appreciate it when you come out with a 2.1 at the end of the year. Everyone says I’m only aiming for 40%, but don’t be fooled, most will be slaving away behind closed doors so don’t be the only one that actually does scrape by!
Georgia Dawson
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