I've been here nearly 2 months and am still trying to get it together in terms of being a student again. It had only been 2 years for me since undergrad, but it's still tough to get back into the swing of things. Procrastination is my first, middle, and last name but so far I'm doing pretty well at battling it. I feel like all I ever do is read. Read read read. I don't mind it, but I wish more of it would stick! I'm loving my course though.
I also feel pretty lost on how to be a postgraduate student. I'm not used to calling my lecturers by their first names, I'm not used to not having exams, it's all just totally different. Luckily, all the other postgrads in my department feel the same way, so I know I'm not alone!
I just wanted to see how everyone else is coming along. How are you dealing with your course? What do you like the most about it? What do you dislike about it? For those of us in postgrad, are you nervous about the D-word (dissertation)? I know I am!
Getting settled in any post-grad degree is stressful, just because it is so much different than an undergraduate setting, and you have touched on some of the major points that US students find difficult too.
In my grad program at University of Kent, I studied law which also did not require exams, I think it may now though. We were required to submit a paper by the beginning of the next term, it killed winter holiday. It is nice and hazardous at the same time. Other grad programs required a smaller paper at the end of term but had an essay final at the end of spring term. I thought this was great at first, but soon realized that those who had exams got to hedge their bets, since their paper was only 50% of their grade and the exam was the remaining 50%. Our papers were 100% of our grade.
As far as the procrastination issue, that was also my main path to completing assignments and took a lot of will power to stop and work ahead. I always used the excuse that I produced better results if I waited until the 11th hour. I quickly found that reading for my current doctoral program would not allow me to do that. I found that the best way, outside of being shocked out of it with a "Fail" or something, was to schedule little goals like having a good detailed outline done a month out, a must for your dissertation. I also found that when you want to study and get sucked into doing something else like TV or cleaning, you might need to change locations all together, such as a quiet bookshop. library or cafe. Those of use who have lived by the procrastination code know that you will come up with the dumbest reasons not to study. One of my main issues was the TV so I just turned off all cable services, it saved money and stopped my biggest distraction, you might need to find yours and kill it. You will not feel like you are reading so much once you space the reading out and get used to it. I found I had a lot more time than I realized and it allowed me to re-read anything that did not sink in the first time. When reading though do not forget to take little breaks too, this will break it up in your head so it will not seem like such a long task.
It took a little bit to start to calling my professors by their first names and "impleri" is spot on in that you are beginning to become their peer and this is how the transition begins to occur, your professors see it that way too. It was really tough for me since I am prior service so everyone is a Sir or Ma'am.
Good luck with the "D" word, it is stressful for everyone that has never written one before (thesis for those with grad degree's from the US.) Procrastination is really bad for this BTW. It helped me that I kind knew what I wanted to write it one when I started the program, so I wrote all my papers on different areas in that subject so when the time came to write my dissertation I had a good chunk of the research done and just had to combine and update a lot of it. Just follow your plagiarism rules about your previous papers. Good luck with everything.
