Three weeks of strikes. Deadlines have been pushed back. Seminars have been cancelled. Chaos and confusion rule as we try to figure out what the hell is going on. Do you do the reading for that seminar that was cancelled? Do you try to catch up on that lecture? It would be really hypocritical of me to say ‘yes’, the irony being that this article was due yesterday and I’m only just writing it now.
As students, it’s hard enough to get work done when your tutors are breathing down your neck. But I know people who have been emailing in asking for help and their tutors have refused point blank to give advice, that is of course if they get a reply at all. So it’s very easy to convince yourself that these last few weeks have been little more than just a holiday. But I have come to the realisation that all this work is going to have to get done at some point, and unless I want to spend my Easter holidays holed up at home crying over essay questions based on books I haven’t read, I need to get a move on. And if that isn’t motivation, I don’t know what is.
While I sympathise with our lecturers I would also quite like to finish this year with some sort of positive grade
The key, I have decided, is to prioritise. Take advantage of the strikes and give yourself some days off, but remember that those summatives still need to be handed in at some point. Rather than leave it until you are inevitably drowning under Easter revision, maybe-just-maybe start your essay sooner rather than later and see what work you can still get done without contact hours. For those of us who have been really affected by the strikes, it could be the case that there is only so much you can do. Which is fine. But while I sympathise with our lecturers I would also quite like to finish this year with some sort of positive grade.
It looks like next week will be another week of contact hour-less-ness, so while I will be embracing the absence of my 9.30’s with a few extra nights out, I will also be trying to get myself up to the Forum in order to make a dent in this pile of work that I’ve been letting grow higher and higher.
How To Stay Motivated
Three weeks of strikes. Deadlines have been pushed back. Seminars have been cancelled. Chaos and confusion rule as we try to figure out what the hell is going on. Do you do the reading for that seminar that was cancelled? Do you try to catch up on that lecture? It would be really hypocritical of me to say ‘yes’, the irony being that this article was due yesterday and I’m only just writing it now.
As students, it’s hard enough to get work done when your tutors are breathing down your neck. But I know people who have been emailing in asking for help and their tutors have refused point blank to give advice, that is of course if they get a reply at all. So it’s very easy to convince yourself that these last few weeks have been little more than just a holiday. But I have come to the realisation that all this work is going to have to get done at some point, and unless I want to spend my Easter holidays holed up at home crying over essay questions based on books I haven’t read, I need to get a move on. And if that isn’t motivation, I don’t know what is.
The key, I have decided, is to prioritise. Take advantage of the strikes and give yourself some days off, but remember that those summatives still need to be handed in at some point. Rather than leave it until you are inevitably drowning under Easter revision, maybe-just-maybe start your essay sooner rather than later and see what work you can still get done without contact hours. For those of us who have been really affected by the strikes, it could be the case that there is only so much you can do. Which is fine. But while I sympathise with our lecturers I would also quite like to finish this year with some sort of positive grade.
It looks like next week will be another week of contact hour-less-ness, so while I will be embracing the absence of my 9.30’s with a few extra nights out, I will also be trying to get myself up to the Forum in order to make a dent in this pile of work that I’ve been letting grow higher and higher.
Maybe.
Beth Lindsay
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