My most memorable moment of second year..

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well.

This post is going to be all about my single most memorable moment of second year. Now this is extremely hard to pin point as there's been so many memorable moments, however the one that stands out the most to me for some reason is when I achieved my first A+ in one of my assignments. I can't remember if I've told you about this already or not but it is by far the best moment I can remember. I never was and probably never will be a straight A student, I always tried really hard to achieve pretty average grades of B's and C's, and I knew if I didn't try at all those grades would be E's and F's. So for me to achieve my best grade yet in possibly one of the most unlikely assignments was an unreal feeling.

The assignment was some phase tests which were carried out on Microsoft Excel, it involved inputting data correctly. I was never good at Maths at school, in fact it was my worst subject throughout Primary and Secondary school, I despised it and I know this was because I was no good at it, or thought I wasn't. This was very much an academic assignment and not only that, the tests were carried out the day after I had some devastating news in the family, it's safe to say I thought I would fail horrendously. My mind was elsewhere, for obvious reasons, I didn't think I would understand the questions, it was an all round bad experience... until I got that grade back at least!

I've certainly enjoyed the assignments more this year. They've been much more challenging but it's been great to see hard work paying off in terms of grades. My grades have been much better this year and I'm not surprised really, my circumstances are much nicer with living at home and I'm just in an all round better situation with university. I think things would be a lot different if I were still living in that first flat and not looking forward to finishing my lectures and going home.

In terms of challenges, I think the most challenging thing this year has been when I had to be given extensions in January. I have already spoke about the reasons behind this so for this post I'll just explain why it was challenging. The main reason being because I vowed not to fall behind this year, although I didn't last year I did seem to leave everything till the last minute which made me so much more stressed in general and I just wanted to keep on top of everything this year. However, it was out of my control. I couldn't have stopped either of the two things that cause the extensions happening and I just had to deal with the fact that I needed them in order to pass the assignments. Obviously, not everything goes to plan but I still managed to stay calm throughout this period of university and because of the extensions on my assignments I wasn't stressed either.
I think the hardest part was accepting that I needed extra help to get me through this tough time in my life and that had to be the way. No one can plan for everything and I made it through the year so YAY!

I think it is so important to reflect on your time in education and also listen to other people's stories as you never know you could well relate to others that you never would of known otherwise. Its a great way to express how you felt throughout a particular time in your education and also makes you feel great about completing certain aspects for example, A-Levels. I hope you all enjoyed this post.

Until next time,

M

Completing Second Year..

Hi everyone,

So this weeks post is going to be exactly as it states in the title, all about how it feels to have completed another year of university, plans for what's to come (i.e. dissertation thoughts) and placements.

I'll start with my thoughts and feelings on finishing the year....

.... and in a nutshell, that picture sums up how it feels.
I didn't really pay much attention to the fact that I have in fact completed my second year of my three year degree, I am over halfway through my degree, I have one year left before I go out into the big wide world of work and I honestly don't know if I'm ready for it all. One thing I do know is how proud I am of myself for actually making it through this past year, it's been difficult and I had a very big knock back in January when I lost someone extremely close to me and had a heart operation, I ended up needing extensions on my assignments etc, which I never thought I'd have to do. I did feel behind at one point but as soon as I was through the worst of it I picked myself with the help of friends, family and my understanding lecturers and got back on track. You can never plan for things like those to happen and it was my luck that I had a double whammy all in the same week, but it's all down to motivation (self and from peers) to get back into the swing of things and I was and still am so determined to do well at university that nothing will stop me. Sorry, I know this went off on a tangent but basically what I'm trying to say it that despite having those hiccups, I made it through the year and I couldn't be happier with how far I've come since starting this university journey.

Now onto plans, now none of these are set in stone, I haven't completely decided on my dissertation title but I do know that I want it to be something to do with university level education, disability and technology. That's about as far as I've got with dissertation planning, I have done a research proposal already for my final Research methods assignment but I'm not completely happy with it. I may end up using it and tweaking it to make sure its suitable and better quality but who knows! There are SO many options for it and it's quite overwhelming, I do know that I will have decided on a title by July, I'll seek approval from my personal tutor and then I'll make sure I've done at least 1,000 words of my dissertation by the time I start my third year (watch this space). I do not want to be going back to uni with no clue of how I'm going to do my biggest assignment of my university career, I want to and will be planned ahead and feeling ready to tackle it. So, yeah that's what next for me education wise.

Placements are at the top of my mind at the moment, I am currently attending one on Friday's with years 5 and 6 and I love it, however because I'm only doing Friday's I'll have only had a weeks worth of experience with this age before I go away in June and I'd like to have more.So, I'll hopefully be able to return to the school in September and rack up a good couple more weeks there before starting back at uni in October. I already have key stage 1 and 2, but it would be nice to have more when it comes to applying for teacher training. I enjoy placement so much, I know all the kids really well considering I only go one day a week. I can truly see myself working in a key stage 1 or 2 environment one day, I guess that's when you know you've picked the right career path!

Well, that's it for this week!

Until next time,

M

A Week into Easter...

Hi everyone...

So its already been a week into my three week Easter break :-(! I'm not going to lie little university work has been done this week, however the plan is to get motivated for next week.

I have realised I only have FIVE assignments left of the year which was so exciting to find out, the best part is only two of those are essays, the rest are presentations and poster presentations which are my favourite type of assignments to do.

The two essays I have left are long ones too, the worst kind. I find long assignments so draining which is a bit worrying for my dissertation, ha! I also have a 7,000 word essay due for one of my modules next year so I've nearly got two dissertations to do next year, one due for November!

The majority of this week was spent down in Cheltenham where my boyfriend goes to university, catching up with friends and having a relaxing break before driving back home (which is a two hour journey) with him for Easter, he only gets two weeks for his Easter break!

I've had a bit more of a think about work experience and I'm hoping to do it in a local school which only caters for students who have social and behavioural problems, I think this will link quite nicely to my psychology route I've got in my head at the moment and will hopefully be an eye opening and decision making experience. I've also got a few links to some professionals and have been told it might be an idea to get in touch with them and see if I can have some sort of mentoring a it's tricky to get experience within certain job roles as they are often confidential.

It's going to be a work filled couple of months but soon enough summer will be here and I'll be getting ready for my holidays. I can't remember if I have mentioned but I'm off to Turkey in June, Spain in July and Rome in August, so it's not all that bad being a student you know haha, but no seriously, the only way I can afford this is due to commuting and having a part time job.

Here's a few snaps of my summer, also will include my 20th birthday and at the end of April a trip to London to watch the marathon.














So I think it's safe to say summer is looking brill, Easter always makes me think about and get excited for summer holidays because they're just weeks away from our Easter breaks at university, the semesters tend to always finish earlier than predicted so university finishes so early compared to school summers.

It is certainly one of the many perks of being a university student, there are quite a few actually.



Until next week..

M