Finshed... Already?

Hi everyone,

So, I know by the sounds of last weeks post it seems I had a full term left of university... well I think I judged that wrong because I've basically finished for the WHOLE year! Yes I said whole year.

Let me explain...

1. Both of the essays I spoke abut last week have been handed in which therefore means no more lectures for those two particular units.
2. My Lifelong unit there is just a poster presentation to be handed in which needs working on today and tomorrow ready to be printed on Monday for handing in on Wednesday next week, the presentation of the poster will be the Wednesday after for an hour... pretty much finished that unit.
3. Finally, Digital Age is the one I have the most work left for, including an audio presentation and the rest of my webfolio to finish off for handing in on the 25th May, this unit can all be prepared from home and if necessary I can attend drop-in sessions on Thursday's between my normal lecture slots of 10am-12pm, however, I feel well prepped for this unit and probably will not feel this is necessary to my webfolio.

I am pretty much telling you that I won't be at uni after the 6th May until October when I begin my third and final year of my Education Studies degree. This certainly does not mean I won't have things to talk about as I already have some exciting news to fill you all in on.

I don't know if I mentioned in any previous posts, but I was stressing a couple of weeks back about redoing my Science GCSE. Mainly because I really do not have the focus to redo a GCSE subject seeing as I'm not working at degree level education and it just really seemed ridiculous. It was also mega expensive to do. I dug out my old GCSE certificates and realised that I did in fact get a C at GCSE Additional Science and a D at core Science. Now additional is actually harder than core so it is bizarre how I managed these grades but that's what happened, I spoke to my personal tutor who also happens to know his stuff when it comes to education, teaching and applying for PGCE's and he enlightened me by telling me that it is of course an accepted Science GCSE qualification which I really did know but I had just worked myself up about redoing it and forgot about the simple answer to this problem. So, all is good in the world, I do not have to think about my GCSE's again and I can focus on finding the perfect teacher training course for me over the summer months, ready to apply before Christmas this year.



Another amazing piece of news is that I GOT A PLACEMENT. I have been ringing round different schools trying to get a placement for a good month now and I have managed to bag myself a placement with years 5&6 at a brilliant little primary school where I have actually worked with younger years before. I am so excited about this, I start today and can't wait to tell you all about it in next weeks post so be sure to look out for that one!

Other than that, I had a hilarious night on Monday with so many of my lovely friends and am completely buzzed about heading to London tomorrow to watch the London marathon. London is one of my favourite places in the world, I love how the city never sleeps and there's always something to do there. I can't wait to live and work there one day, but for now home is where I want to be.



Until next time,

M.

First Week of Final Term..

Hi everyone, as you may have guessed from the title of this post.. it's basically one of my 'week overviews'.

It's been all go this week on assignments, I handed my second to last essay in yesterday which was my 3,000 word Research Proposal for my dissertation. It took me a long time that's for certain. Over Easter my aims were to do both of the essays I have due in, one for this week and one for next. I did the one for next week which was 2,000 words for my Comparative Education unit all about Japan's history and current education system. I managed this essay in about two days which was impressive for me because I thought this would be the one I'd find the hardest, turns out I was wrong. I did this essay first purely for the reason I thought I'd find it a struggle and would take me a long time, I thought I would find my Research Proposal easier as its on a topic I'm interested in.

However, it turns out the Research Proposal took me a lot longer, I think because the structure of the assignment was very different to a normal university style essay and I was overall more worried about getting a good grade in this one in particular. Having said this, I managed to finish it in time and it's finally submitted and awaiting feedback and a grade. The Japan essay I found a breeze, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but hey ho its done and dusted and just needs to be handed in now.

It's so interesting to learn and research about other countries education systems, everyone does it so differently and I'd highly recommend doing some research even if you aren't doing a particular assignment just to get your knowledge up about different countries.

As for un-uni related things this week, it's been an expensive one. I've booked a holiday to Rome with my cousin, bought a new laptop that isn't arriving for another four to six weeks (depressing) and a few holiday clothing bits. It's less than two months untill my summer holidays start (as in go on a plane, abroad) and I'm healthy eating and gymming crazily at the moment. I've got a running programme that finishes in two weeks when I'll be up to five k and a resistance training app which finishes the week before I go to Turkey! This may not be interesting to some of you but I'm really into fitness at the moment and I'm feeling really good about myself (for once)!

So, yeah that's an overview... I've got a more chilled week next week with a night out back at uni, a poster presentation to complete and my Comparative Education essay due which I need to read over and add a conclusion too.

Look out for another update like this one next week!

Until next time,

M.

Making the jump..

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well.

This weeks post is going to be all about making that big jump from school or college to university and trust me it is a big one!

It can either be extremely daunting for some people or others can brush it off thinking it "won't be that hard" but actually from experience I can tell you that the jump is actually massive. Some of you probably think, "oh, it's just essays like school" well yes it is, but the whole way you write completely changes, you will not be writing essays you did at school, the structure, length and pretty much everything about them changes.

The main things I found most difficult to adjust to are, time keeping, referencing and self motivation. When you go to university you are usually (unless you're a commuter) all by yourself, and it's up to you to make friends, get yourself to lectures and generally live. So for me, moving away from home and having to get myself to lectures, seminars, meetings etc on time and be prepared for each was very hard at first. Throughout most sixth forms and colleges we are constantly being reminded and motivated by our teachers, parents and fellow learners, yet coming to university that completely changes; and so self motivation is definitely a key skill to obtain. Lecturers are quite relaxed, but it's up to you to turn up to classes, and is your problem if you don't, as you're the one paying all the tuition fees, so it's up to you to turn up. And that's the same with deadlines too. You have to be aware of them and you cannot rely on your tutors telling you what to do and what to write, much like the teachers at school do. It is all down to you and you only. If you are not self motivated, you are not going to succeed and it really is as simple as that.

Another thing I struggled with was referencing, and even now I am still getting my head around this and still have to follow the referencing guidelines for every essay I write. Referencing is hard to explain so I'm not going to try, but basically EVERYTHING you write at university level HAS to be backed up with some literature and therefore you must highlight who backs up your point - hence referencing. I think every other first year struggles with this to begin with, as most of us have absolutely no clue of the referencing concept or what it entails, so it took me pretty much a whole year to understand the full reasons and regulations behind referencing, and even now I use the referencing guidelines as I'm not 100 percent on what full stop goes where (yes, it is that strict)! This concept is where you can probably tell how university writing is completely different to school/college writing, you have to be all round more sophisticated with the way you write and really show a developed and academic form and structure in your essays and all university work.

Getting to grips with Harvard referencing!

Time keeping is the final thing I found difficult; to understand what time I needed to be up to make it to a lecture was fairly easy for me as my halls were on campus, however I know it was hard for my friends who didn't live on campus. Relying on university buses instead of cars etc, it's all very scary being pushed into an 'adult world'. To walk into a lecture or seminar late is the worst too! In terms of writing essays in time, I think this was the worst part of time keeping for me. Understanding that I cannot do an essay the night before and gain a good grade was learnt the hard way for me. I pretty much worked my way through first year doing this, constantly battling with that 11.59pm deadline on the day it was due. I realised towards the end of first year that if I wanted a decent grade at the end of my degree I needed to put the work in, weeks and months before my deadlines, which is exactly what I have done this year and it feels so much better. I'm getting much better grades and feeling so much better about myself.

Learning the hard way - keeping to time

So, yeah that's pretty much it. I struggled with those main things when I was thrown into university life.

I hope this post doesn't scare you and motivates you to try your best to make sure these things don't happen to you as extreme as they did to me. It's definitely a learning curve.

Until next week,

M.

University Open Days

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all well and enjoying the Easter break, I definitely am!

I thought I would talk about open days in this post as I'm sure some if not all of you are well on your way into visiting universities and finding the ones that you like best, but if not then this post can offer you some advice about choosing a university and what to look for when researching your potential choices.

Visiting a uni is the best way to find
out more

Open days really are the BEST way of getting a genuine feel for a university, the only way you'll ever know what a university is going to be like is by walking round and looking in every nook and cranny there is possible whilst you're there. Bedford was the only university I visited, partly because I had a Saturday job at the time and couldn't afford not to take time off as most of the open days were on Saturdays when I was looking and partly because I didn't have much choice when it came to university as I wanted to stay relatively close to home so that I could have the option to commute if needs be. Don't get me wrong I could have looked at a couple more but I just didn't and luckily for me it worked out ok, however if I were choosing a university far from home I would 100 percent only put it as one of my choices if I'd seen it.

Living away from home for three or four years may not seem like much at time because you're still doing a-levels and its a 'long time coming' but really it is only round the corner and before you know it you could be being shipped off to a part of the country you really no nothing about. So, my first piece of advice is VISIT UNIVERSITIES no matter what you think of their websites of brochures, everything is different in person and I would advise all of you to visit as many as you can because you never know, one you weren't so keen on from the pictures might actually be everything you want and more, so basically I'm using the cliche 'don't judge a book by its cover'.

One thing that made me feel more sure about Bedford than my other choices was because I'd seen it, I knew the distance it was from home which is perfect, I knew where I'd be studying down to the exact rooms almost, I'd visited the town centre and I'd even looked at potential job opportunities, everything about it felt right and that really is only down to the fact that I was familiar with the town and everything in it, not familiar enough to miss out on the initial exploring when you arrive but just enough to feel extra comfortable with my choice of university.

Here's a link to the universities open day page of their website in case any of you want to have a look and come along to one.

And take a look on YouTube to watch some videos all about their open days:

I study at the Bedford campus

If you really cannot gain access to a particular university you are interested in and really think it would be great for one of your choices I would consider scouring their website, google and any online forums for reviews of everything from the accommodation you are applying for to the best place for a cooked breakfast. It might be an idea to contact the university direct and ask for any extra information or even if they can help you in any way to learn any more information if you don't ask you don't get and all that.

I hope this post helps you on the path to finding your university and offers advice in the ways to do so.

Hope you have a good week, I'll speak to you next Friday when my Easter break will nearly be up :-(

Until next week,

M