I realise this blog has been a little late coming but I have been ill recently so I’ve playing catch up on everything. I’ve had some good news in that my application has been accepted to study for a Masters Degree in philosophy and economics. For me, choosing to apply for a Masters Degree was a much harder decision than choosing to go to University in the first place. At that point it feels like going to University is the normal thing to do and the debt is less worrying as everyone you will come to know will be in a similar situation. By choosing to do another year of education and take on that extra little bit of debt it brought up a lot more worries about whether it would be worth it or whether it would put me at a disadvantage later.

One of the biggest concerns is how to fund an extra year at University. The main way would be to apply for as much funding as possible or to look for any scholarships that are applicable to you; one of the better options is to continue at the same University as they often offer discounts to their undergraduates. This is not always possible, in my case Lancaster University does not offer the specific Masters Degree I wanted so I will have to move. The next step is to find a part-time job to fit around your studies or to take a gap year to make up some of the funding before you start. Fortunately Masters Degrees (at least the ones I have been looking at) tend to be cheaper than a year studying an Undergraduate Degree and recent changes have meant that an extra loan is available to students hoping to go on to postgraduate study.

The other question is whether you truly want to carry on in education or not. It can be hard to decipher between wanting to actually study more and being too uncertain to come out of education. After three years in the student life bubble one of the most terrifying things is it ending and suddenly feeling the need to be a responsible proper adult, even though you don’t really have to. You also may have still not really decided what you want to do but instead of investing that much more into education it makes more sense to go out and trial different jobs until you find something you do like. I decided that what I really loved doing was my degree and so I knew if I didn’t continue to study it then it would be something I would slowly become out of touch with.

I guess the point is that studying for another year shouldn’t be the default option if you’re uncertain. It is a risk financially and if you love the subject then it matters less if the risk doesn’t pay off, if you were only uncertain then that risk matters a lot more.

It’s only halfway through term 2 but it’s beginning to feel close to the Easter holidays already. Deadlines are being brought up and coursework presentations are underway. This week is my final week as an exec member on any society and with that in mind this week’s topic will be a nostalgic cast back on RocSoc, which I hope will give you an idea of what being a part of a society can do for your university experience.

I joined RocSoc in first year, initially just as a member, with the hope of making some new friends with similar interests to me. Not only was I instantly welcomed by the community there but it gave me something consistent to look forward to every Monday night. Towards the end of first year I ran for Treasurer and took my first exec position on a society, got my first exec t-shirt and the RocSoc treasury which felt like a strange personal accessory to go with a toy.

Since then I have dedicated every Monday and Wednesday night, as well as a few Saturdays, to RocSoc and I don’t regret a minute of it. Not only have I met some of the best people I know there, but I have heard some great bands and learned a lot along the way. Together we’ve put on events, trips and given our members and locals a regular spot to listen to music as well as play some of their own. I was also able to develop my own pricing strategy which brought the society back into profit and work on my confidence in various roles that required me to push myself and be more sociable.

There were moments of sadness when all the third years, that had made me so welcome when I came in a trembling fresher, took their leave. It was strange to see many of them leaving to become ‘proper adults’, tying back their long hair and wearing suits, especially having seen them near enough living in band shirts and prancing about on stage. But with the new era came a new wave of fresher’s to change things up again as well as a new exec with different ideas for the society altogether. RocSoc evolved again and started holding more specialised events such as guitar hero socials or jam nights. With new people the music tastes diversified and we started hearing more Japanese metal and pop punk, whilst not always appreciated it was good to have the range.

Sadly, due to the floods, this final term was not everything we hoped it would be. Our venue was flooded, we had to cancel events and we could not put on our final trip as a goodbye from the current exec. Tonight we host the elections and hope that whoever takes our place hits the ground running to keep RocSoc alive and well. Joining the exec of a society you care about can be the best thing about university, not only in terms of making friends but in experience. It will give you the chance to do things you never thought you would and to be part of something that really feels worthwhile.

This week life is pretty much continuing as normal. Essay results are slowly dripping back in and I’m beginning to prepare presentations which make up the coursework for my modules this term. As someone who is absolutely terrified of presenting, this week I will talk a little about confidence and anxiety at university and how I am dealing with it.

It’s easy to fall into the background at university; there are so many talented people with the confidence to show it off it really is a skill worth investing some time in. Think of this as an opportunity of a life time, yes you could cruise through it in your comfort zone and be fine but with confidence it could be so much more. I suffer from quite bad anxiety, I struggle to walk into rooms if I think people will notice, I get anxious at having to make any phone calls and if I’m slightly uncomfortable with something I retreat back into my shell and may point blank refuse to do it. First year I was so over whelmed that I barely did anything aside my work and missed out on a lot of experiences and friends because of it, whilst I watched others setting up businesses and getting out there. If there’s any advice I would give my first year self it would be to just do it.

Not only does confidence affect the social experience you will have but the academic one too. I would never have taken modules that involved presentations as coursework and so would have missed out on the topics I wanted to do. Neither would I have had the confidence in myself to learn the necessary mathematics or asked for feedback to improve my work.

The only way I found to get out of my first year box was to force myself into situations where I was accountable for certain tasks that I knew I would be scared of when they came about, but that gave me time to prepare for them. For example by running for treasurer I could start off lurking in the periphery of a dark room at RocSoc and slowly build up to being on the doors taking money or booking coaches. By taking modules you know there will be presentations for in the future weeks you can start early and practise so that by the time you get to it you do the best job you can. If there is an option not to do it then it won’t happen but forcing yourself through it will eventually build up that confidence until you have a choice and still do it. It may still be terrifying but I no longer feel angry at myself for being the person holding me back.

I realise this doesn’t apply to everyone, possibly no one but me, but I felt that if it encourages anyone to step out of their comfort zone then it is in some way beneficial. Lancaster University offers classes to help you, for example through the Lancaster Award I attended workshops on confidence and interview success which gave me that extra support in doing things which other people see as every day and easy. There are also plenty of people you can talk to such as academic tutors, the nightline or college representatives depending on what you need to help you feel more able, either academically or socially. Being at university is a chance to take all of your best assets and really develop them so don’t miss out, I know it’s easier said than done but it is doable and completely worth it.

We’re back in action; it’s the first week back after Christmas and its already full steam ahead to Easter. I’ve started two new modules this term, both in economics, and aside that there is only my dissertation to be done. This term will also be a little emptier as we are soon to have elections for RocSoc and, as this is my final year, I will need to step down. In this way it feels like my time at Lancaster University is moving into the ‘final push’ stage before the end, which is now unnervingly close. Given that most of this term is likely to be filled with my dissertation that is my topic of today, or at least my experiences in finding a topic and getting underway.

 

Picking a Topic

Some people you will meet already know, or think they know, what they want to do for their dissertation from day 1 and that can make you feel behind or lost if you’ve never even thought about it…don’t worry about it. In fact, it’s probably better that you don’t have an idea until you actually have to decide given that you will learn a lot in that time and change your mind many times. What does help is to have an idea of what you like within your subject area and then slowly narrow it as you go until there is a specific area you know you are willing to dedicate most of your spare time to reading about. As you have no lectures or seminars to keep it at the top of your mind you will need to motivate yourself and that is a lot easier if it’s something you think about a lot anyway.

 

Tutors

Every tutor manages their students differently. I know some of my friends have quite strict tutors who set them deadlines to finish drafts and prepare meetings far in advance, others have laid back ones who are happy to have meetings when you feel you need them. Given there is some flexibility in who can be your tutor, as in the PPR department you select a number of tutors you feel are suitable for your topic, make sure to think about more than just expertise but also consider who you will work well with or how enthusiastic they may be about your topic. The other point to remember is that having a single tutor does not mean you cannot get input from elsewhere. As my dissertation is multidisciplinary it’s useful to have more perspectives and so I often ask my tutors from other modules if they think there is a route I should be exploring.

 

Starting

When you start your dissertation it seems gigantic and that blank page in front of you can be intimidating, sometimes to the point where you end up procrastinating as you don’t know where to start. What worked for me was to start somewhere in the middle instead of with the introduction and then working my way out. Once you have a few ideas down on paper it becomes a lot easier, even if you know it’s poorly written and may even be entirely chopped out in the final draft. On top of this have a little paragraph, or even a few lines, that reminds you of your issue and gets you straight back into the zone every time you come back to it. By the 5,000 word mark it’s easy to lose focus so having a reminder of where you’re going or a list of ideas you want to get into helps keep that on track, especially as throughout the process you will keep adding more and more or becoming side tracked with an issue that is not really relevant. Despite all of this it is not as bad as it seems, set yourself a quota of so many words per week and treat it as writing a series of mini essays on the same topic, it makes it a lot more manageable.

 

 

Firstly, many apologies for posting so late but due to the floods, travelling about and sorting things out it, it slipped my mind. I doubt I will be posting too often over the course of the Christmas holiday as I’m not in Lancaster but for now I am going to talk a little about crisis management which, while not something people consider when thinking about University preparation, now seems a lot more relevant.

 

In the last week of term the North of England, including Lancaster, was hit by Storm Desmond. I knew when I came here that weather could be a bit feisty, being from Wales I hadn’t really noticed the difference, but this was unexpected. I was fortunate enough to be on higher ground so the floods themselves did not affect me aside the power cut. At first it was a novel experience, everyone frantically looking for candles and torches (ironically difficult in the dark) and going out to see the submerged cars and shops for themselves but by the following day the excitement had worn off leaving an air of panic. Realising that we had no heating, no means to cook and only natural lighting which had gone by 4pm, everyone started evacuating that could find a bit of signal to call in the cavalry. So what have I learnt from it all?

 

When choosing off-campus accommodation check where it is and how ‘crisis prone’ it is, whether it is with regards to flooding, crime or power cuts. Also become friendly with your landlord so that if something was to occur you know they will be there to help you; I am lucky to have very friendly and attentive landlords but I saw the masses of people banging on the doors of letting agents who were clearly less fortunate.

 

Make sure to keep things like torches in obvious places because when you most need them is when you’re least likely to be able to see them. In case of bad weather specifically make sure you have a decent raincoat and walking boots too, I didn’t go as far as waterproof trousers but it never hurts to be more prepared.

 

The most important thing is to make the best of whatever situation thrown at you. Despite all the worry there were positives; I’ve never bonded with some of my friends so much and you rely on the simple pleasures such as going out for walks and drunken board game nights. It almost had a festival feel as people sat around playing instruments and smelling a lot.

 

Lastly I want to say a few things about how Lancaster University handled it. Being that last week of term held everyone’s exams and coursework deadlines we were all considerably nervous that we couldn’t get to campus easily, couldn’t write or submit our essays, couldn’t revise properly or generally had been too displaced or worried to focus, especially as no one could get online to know what was going on. I think the University did well to postpone all deadlines and exams until next term even when the power did come back on and things began to return to normal, they focussed on the student’s welfare and told us to leave Lancaster if it were possible. Whilst I don’t live on campus I heard that they set up spaces for the students to sleep if they had to leave their accommodation, served free food and even set up common rooms and cinema viewings to keep up morale. They also put on free buses to Preston in order to get students to an open train station when Lancaster Train Station was closed. So as much as it isn’t something I considered when choosing a University, I can now say that Lancaster University will look after you should something go wrong.

 

And on that note, happy holidays.

The end is in sight! This week saw the last RocStock of term, my only exam of the term over and the end of my term as PhilSoc treasurer. Everything seems to be drawing to a neat close with only essays to finish off and a karaoke to get through next Monday;  not that this week went at all smoothly as our headlining band pulled out of our RocStock event a night before, typically the one thing I didn’t revise came up on my exam as the biggest question and, well, I still have three essays to finish. With this in mind, this week I will offer a little advice, or at least my experience, on surviving the final few weeks.

 

The last couple weeks of term can be considered the homeward straight where it becomes both the hardest and most important time to resist temptations of student life. This is especially the case for first term as, on the run up to Christmas, societies’ hold their special events, the execs want to have Christmas meals and campus has its Christmas market. The holiday season mood also gets people feeling frivolous and so impromptu drinks and nights out are even more tempting. For me the only way to handle this in previous years has been to essentially lock myself in my room and not come out until I’d done enough work to justify it (albeit this is a slippery slope given that I got to set my own standards, and I was incredibly lenient when it came to myself.) This year I will be trying something slightly different and working as if it was a 9 to 5 (maybe 7) job. Whilst this still means I can’t really go out of an evening or drink much more than the odd solitary ale, it may mean that I won’t be running about like a headless chicken come deadline day; I will let you know how that works out.

 

At the very least it should also help to save the pennies as all this extra socialising, on top of present buying, will leave your bank account in a sorry state if you’re not careful. One way to get around this is agree on a maximum cost for presents with friends or to agree to only get ‘silly’ presents so neither of you breaks the bank; similarly you could just make an agreement not to buy each other presents, but risk this getting awkward when one party decides to buy one anyway. The other way is to budget in everything so you know exactly what you will be spending, including ‘goodbye nights out’ and travel costs to get home, which are costs most easily forgotten yet some of the bulkiest. Having said that, budget a little extra to treat yourself in the final few weeks as a box of mince pies knocking around and maybe some sneaky mulled wine really can help to lift the mood and get you through to the end relatively unscathed.