Having just finished my January exams, now is the time to reflect on my past modules and prepare for my final term. Like many students on the business courses, I don’t have a dissertation. Instead, my final term will follow the same format as the autumn one, with four modules, one of which is a language. This means that all the work that I will be starting is new and will include assessments such as presentations, group projects and case studies. Until my course starts in Feburary I have very little information on these and I have not received many results from the past term. However, in this blog post I will discuss one piece of work that I am just getting started on, what I have learnt from the last term, and my concerns on how to improve and get the best possible grades on the final stretch of my degree.

 

Case Study Coursework

One assessment that I do have some information on is my French module. This term will comprise of a long piece of written work, which will be due in the summer. We have been given considerable free rein for this final assignment and can choose to either undertake a research project, case study or something more creative. The main criteria is that it needs to be in French. I believe that I will choose to carry out a case study on a french company and need to start my research as soon as possible. The main challenge is likely to be finding suitable sources in french. In the past I have primarily used Library Search, but for this piece of work I am likely to need to use Google Scholar more, newspaper articles and the company information such as annual reports. Online tools, such as Orbis, may also be useful in order to talk about the financial progression of the company.

 

New Study Tools for the New Year

Although I am unsure of what my other pieces of work may comprise of, I am sure that I will need to undertake considerable research for these too. I am very likely to continue to use Library Search, Google Scholar, Orbis and Mintel. However, my workload last term was extremely intense and I would like to try and learn from this to be more efficient in my research. One area which I would like to improve on is keeping track of my readings and the most interesting ideas to come from them. To help me with this last term I began to use a piece of software called MindView. This is a mind mapping tool that helps me to record the reading that I have done, the name of the book/journal, author, date and main points. This means that I can more easily find the details and organise my thoughts. Once I have completed my research, I can also move the branches around in order to develop a structure before starting to write.

 

Brushing up on the Basics

I hope that this tool will help to make me more efficient this term, but like all things, it takes a bit of practise to use it to its full potential. However, I feel that there are other areas in which I can improve as well. Although I have not previously read study skill books, I would like to use some of the time that I have before starting the next term to review one in order to understand where I am doing well and what I can work on. This term is the last chance to get as good a grades as possible and therefore I want to ensure that all the effort that I am putting in is as productive as possible. I feel that tips in researching and writing in an academic style will be useful. I have found a copy of Study Skills for Business and Management available online through the library, so I will be getting started on that very shorty and I hope that this will help to brush up my study skills for the final term.