university: dissertation

This is an addition to the 'university' series - on how to plan your dissertation. I've used my Flex by Filofax notebook for this but you could also use normal Filofax notepaper too.

Stage 1: Planning the course of action.


I first looked at how many weeks I had left before it was due in and wrote those weeks down. I then figured out what needed to be done and then spread the work out in manageable weeks. Of course, I may end up doing things ahead of schedule but this is the rough plan:

Stage 2: Planning the dissertation structure (preliminary - things may change!)

This is me planning the structure of my project:

On the left is the rough plan and requirements of the project and dissertation. And on the left, is a rough structure for it. This may change and the number of chapters may also change.

Stage 3: The reading and researching

And then the actual researching. On the top of the page, I have written the reference of the paper or article or a general title such as below ('Basic stuff'). Then I will take note of the important points read in that particular file or article.

Stage 4: Writing the actual thing

Then, the home straight - writing the actual thing! This will require countless cups of coffee and green tea for me but with perseverance, if we get as far as this, the end is in sight and that should be motivation enough!

Although I've not written mine yet, I am currently at the researching stage. Any other tips? Send them my way through a comment or email - I will be grateful for anything that may help too!

university: revision and exams

Revision and Exams - not exactly the most interesting topic I could write about but we will always face tests and exams in life...

Here is how I do things - this may or may not work for everyone but I find it works fine for me.

1) Write out your lecture notes - this is always my first step for revision.

Include any other notes you may have made through extra reading, watching other university lectures, etc. too.

2) Summarise each topic on one side of A4 - two sides if it is a big topic.

Particular emphasise should be on the parts that you find most difficult to learn or understand.

3) Write out sticky notes with the information you find particularly difficult to understand or remember.

Or even for the bits of information that are purely factual and can be listed - such as the ionotropic and metabotropic sticky note on the top right of the picture.

4) Do past papers! Plan answers to them and add in any extra bits that may show a deeper level of understanding. 

Try and link up lectures from the same module or even different ones.

5) And finally... plan your revision schedule and stick to it.

Again, simple tips but I find simple works best with exams as complicated as the ones I've had to sit for my degree!

I hope these help and if there is anything else you think would be useful and would like me to blog about, do let me know via a comment or email (contact details are on the 'contact' page).

brightening things up...

Been having some trouble recently just by feeling seriously fatigued. Luckily, I have about two months to do my dissertation so hopefully things will be looking up quite soon!

So to brighten my desk up, I bought this:

Prepare for my review of my current Filofax: The Affair by Temperley by London for Filofax. I'm going to review how it has survived a month of solid use and a month of being thrown roughly into my handbag and stuff. 

university: balancing social life and work

At university, you'll find that there'll be plenty of opportunities to have a social life as well as work. You may decide to run for president or another position on the committee of a society or you may decide to take part in a time-consuming sport; either way, you'll need to balance your time carefully in order to keep on top of your work.

Here are my tips:

1) Write everything into your diary.

This is what my diary looked like a few weeks ago when I was busy every day and night:

If you don't have a diary, invest in one! Don't rely on your phone or whatever - these things break down - trust me, I've had it happen to me!

As you can see, I've been pretty busy - I wrote in films I want to see (with the asterisks), what happened that day as you can see from the Friday (yes, I finally got that elusive offer for medicine!) and Saturday and Sunday - the things I did. It's a mixture of work and play - the work side was the lecture on Thursday and the play was mainly at the weekend.

2) Learn to prioritise.

If you have a lab report due in, don't plan for something the night before that will last for quite a while. Here is an example: I had a lab report due in at 2pm so I opted to play squash with a friend at half five that evening instead of the evening prior to this hand in deadline.

Another is here:

My essay deadline. This also marked the beginning of my revision week for this module and so I wrote down to make loads of frozen meals - another way to organise.

3) Write things into your diary as soon as soon as you get advanced notice for something.

I'm currently a hall senior so I have to attend fortnightly hall meetings and I write these in my diary as soon as the date for the next one is set. The pancakes event on the Tuesday is also a hall event - hence why it has also been written in. This was also during my revision week so I had planned what to revise that day - which is what 'functional methods' and 'principles' stand for.

4) If you organise something, make sure you keep track of it. 

Here, I have organised a poker and monopoly deal night. In preparation for it, I have to buy some food, drinks, snacks, etc and so I will organise this using a post-it note stuck to my 'today' marker.

5) Know what things are more important than others.

Of course, that netball/football/rugby match against a rival university is less important than a lab report but it is also more important than going food shopping - as you could do that straight after or on the way back.

These are the tips I have for this section - most of them are common sense; nothing special but sometimes we need to go back to basics in order to move forward (at least I did this year).

The next and final section is about the most important part - revision and exams. Not gonna be a fun post to write but it will hopefully prove useful to any students who read it :-)