The view from in here: Stress

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How I do it (Part One)

Midyear enrollments are fast approaching and Murdoch have asked me to do a post on one of the most common concerns people have when considering enrolling, namely that they won't have enough time to study. This post is more going to deal with balancing studying and having a social life and I will do another tomorrow dealing with work and University and how the two sometimes negatively interact.

When you're doing a full-time degree there is no getting away from the fact that it does take up a significant portion of your average week. On the surface it may seem like you only have to be on campus for your contact hours, whatever those may be, but you also need to account for the time you will spend doing important activities such as tutorial readings, assignment preparation and the extra time actually writing an assignment can take. When you factor in any time you might have to spend working a part or full-time job and a few hours to spend with friends or family it starts to seem incredibly daunting.

For my first few months at University I found creating a balance between the social life of living in the Village and the demands of my degree very difficult. I would either spend entire nights locked away in the library, researching for assignments or I would go to the other extreme and put all thoughts of studying out my head while I went out drinking with friends. Neither extreme was particularly healthy but I did find my balance and from that I came up with a few little rules to govern my behaviour and help me better manage my time.

1. Have a set starting and stopping point

I struggled at first because I would over-study and then be exhausted the next day for class. I would go up to the library around nine at night and not leave until two in the morning. Being tired meant that I was never really studying as much or as effectively as I could and so I never took in as much information as I should have. I did find that if I set myself a set time to start and stop studying that I would be much more productive in that burst, rather than being unfocused for a longer period of time.

2. Keep a calendar

Buy a calendar. Write down the due dates for every single assignment and exam you are going to have for the semester. If someone invites you out, simply check the calendar. If there's a big assignment or exam due soon then you should probably be writing it or studying for it instead of drinking heavily. Combining the two is not recommended.

3. Have a study space

If you share a house with friends, or live in the village, the chances are you are probably limited in your study space. While studying in a common space, such as your kitchen or living room, may work for a little while sooner or later someone will disturb your study flow. I personally like to use the library to study as you are surrounded by like-minded people and during the day there is a whole section devoted to quiet study.

4. Put the books down and go outside

Locking yourself away and studying for long periods of time is fine, provided you also get out of the house and do something completely unrelated to studying. I would often stop studying for an exam and simply go for a fifteen or twenty minute walk. It's amazing how much easier it is to study if you take such breaks. Likewise, after a big assignment is finished, take a day off and go to the cinema with friends, or go clubbing (I'm told that's what kids these days do). Dwelling on what you might have done differently in an exam or assignment is the most wasteful avenue of thought and time.

5. Relax

University is not life and death, though it can sometimes seem like it is. If you don't think, for any myriad of reasons, that you'll make the deadline for an assignment then talk to your tutor. Nine times out of ten they will give you an extension. Though, you should never get into the habit of asking for them. Failing a unit or an assignment is also not the end of it all. There are always allowances to be made and ways of making the failed units up.

I will be putting up the second post on this topic sometime tomorrow. Until then why not tell me what your suggestions for balancing University and your social life are?

posted under International Students, Jonathan Gurney, Lectures, Murdoch Blogger, Murdoch University, murdochuni, Public Relations, Semester 1 2011, Stress, Student Village | 5 Comments

Completing your first University assignment (Part One)

So hopefully you’re settling into the new and exciting world of University. By now you’ve probably already eaten at all the places on campus, argued with at least one person in a tutorial and felt the temptation to skip lectures. In my first few weeks at Uni I managed to completely overdose on energy drinks and ended up shaking so badly that I couldn’t take notes during one of my Foundation unit lectures. So, yeah. Don’t do that.

By now the first deadline for your first University assignment is probably looming just over the horizon and you might be beginning to feel the pressure. Well, in the words of an immortal guide book, Don’t Panic. This series of posts will hopefully help you prepare and write your first assignment.

Read your question

This seems really obvious and you don’t think it’s necessary but half of the process of writing the assignment is knowing exactly what you need to write. The wording of the question is key to how you plan and write your essay. We’ll discuss plans in a bit but first you must ensure you understand what your tutors are asking you for. The best part about being in first year though is that your tutors welcome any questions regarding assessments. They get a little less forgiving as time goes on so make sure you use this grace period to answer any of your questions.

Plan your essay

This is really only applicable for an essay so feel free to stop reading here if your assignment is different. When I was in my second year, studying Power of the Media and Public Opinion, I had the luck to be handed a formula for planning almost all essays I would be given. This was given to me by Dr. Ian Cook at Murdoch. In my role as mentor I now share this formula with you.

There are four basic types of directive words that can form an essay question:

1. is / can / does
2. explain / outline / why / account for
3. discuss / critically assess / critically evaluate
4. to what extent

The basic directive words are each accompanied by four basic essay structures:

1. yes case - no case - my case (not necessarily in this order)
2. list
3. model & analysis
4. continuum

The structures explained:

1. There are only 2 answers available for an "is / can / does" type of question - yes and no. Both the yes case and the no case need to be explained but in the end an essay must make clear that its author thinks either yes or no or possibly both. This can be referred to as my case

2. Explaining something might be to provide a set of reasons that it occurred or a set of things that someone needs to know about that thing in order to understand it. Outlining something involves indicating its identifying characteristics or principle features. When we are asked why something is so or why it happened or account for - we are usually being asked to provide reasons. Therefore we are providing a list.

3. To effectively discuss/critically assess/critically evaluate something we need to provide an explanation of what we think that thing is. This explanation or replication is referred to as a model. Try to present this in an as convincing manner as possible. In the second part of the essay you will examine and focus on making sense of your model therefore analysing the first part of your essay.

4. This is a fairly unusual type of question as it resembles the "is / can / does" type of question but does not require the simpler yes/no response. The responses available to a question of this type belong on a continuum. The simplest of which is one that includes 'to a minimal extent' at one end of the continuum and 'to a maximum extent' at the other end. A recommended approach to answering this type of question is by replacing the 'yes case' with 'reasons that the answer lies toward one end of the continuum' and replacing the 'no case' with 'reasons that the answer lies toward the other end of the continuum'. 'My case' should then be replaced with a section which establishes where on the continuum your answer lies.

** (The above structures must always be accompanied by solid introductions and conclusions) **

- Dr. Ian Cook.

This formula might not work for you but if it does then feel free to use it and share it with others. The next post in this series should be up on Wednesday the 2nd of March. Also remember you can email me at any time with anything you think I need to write about or anything you think I have forgotten. I also will try and respond to comments on the blog itself.

posted under Assignments, BA in Security Terrorism and Counterterrorism studies, Jonathan Gurney, Murdoch University, murdochuni, Semester 1 2011, Stress | 0 Comments

The Jitters

Around this time in the semester I start to get nervous and I don’t mean slightly uncomfortable or a little bit worried but actual, full blown anxiety. This may sound strange as I am usually happy go lucky and don’t worry about anything until its much too late. Whenever someone talks to me about Global Warming the chances are that I’ll cheerfully zone out and imagine which mutant power I would most like to have. This isn’t, you understand, because I don’t care about the problems facing our Environment, but rather it is because there are so many people who are so much smarter than myself doing so that I rather feel I would get under foot and annoy them. Also while they are worrying over that no-one is left to worry about which mutant power I would like to develop.

The real reason I become so concerned at this moment is because so much of my free time will seem to be devoted to assignments and researching for them. I’ll spend so much time staring blankly at Google Scholar or at word documents that it will start to feel like my entire existence is based on a little flashing line that dictates where the next word I write will go. So the long and short of it is that I get a little stressed over assignments, that’s normal and I should just deal with it. This year though I have one little tiny morsel more on my plate, this is my last semester of University.

After I pass that final unit I will be a free man and due some unforeseen financial problems (post-grad is a little out of my budget) I will be looking for full time employment. These however are not issues I wish to burden you with my dear reader, instead I was hoping to share my strategy of dealing with stress. Every semester the Guild holds a Stamp Out Stress day where there is a petting zoo, drumming lessons and free herbal tea. It is the greatest invention ever and humankind shall never ascend to the dizzying heights required for such an idea ever again. This semester though I will be unfortunate enough to miss out on it and the therapy that feeding a fuzzy lamb brings. Instead I will be working in the relatively non-stress-free environment of the commercial cafe.

So that is why, in my hour of need, I am turning to you, the people I try to entertain here. Please let me know how you deal with stress, is it exercise? Screaming pillow therapy? Semi-legal narcotics? Keep in mind that my sanity is in the balance and, while reading about me becoming dangerously unhinged would be enjoyable, you would be saving me from an inevitable breakdown.

posted under Assignments, Creativity, exams, Murdoch University, murdochuni, Semester 2 2010, Stress | 7 Comments