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.