It’s here, nobody expected it to come around this quick but it has. We have reached the last leg of our journey, the all important 3rd year. It’s time to trade in the late nights out and copious amounts of alcohol, for dinner parties that finish at 9 and a temporary residence in the library. It may have been National Libraries Week last week for the nation, but for a third year student it’s the other place called home that just happens to be on campus. And that is no joke, when you have limited contact hours and and tons of dissertation research and reading to do, it only makes sense that the library becomes a second home. Being in third year and not living on campus means there are few spots to reside when you have time to kill (so first years please go back to your halls). Having the library space available almost forces you to be productive during your free periods, as travelling home and back means valuable study time has been lost.
The key to capitalising on your library time is knowing how you work best, and the library caters for all types of study. If you’re a collaborative worker and you like to share your ideas with others, or have group work to do, the group study areas are (obviously) the best places to get that work done, but claim your space early because these spots fill up the fastest (again, first years please get your resources and go back to your halls, space is limited). Alternatively places like room 76 and the ACCA cafe are great places to get some work done if you don’t need to be in complete silence.
If you’re like me and you need minimal distractions, and people to distract, the silent and quiet study areas on all floors of the library are ideal for getting in the zone and implementing your third year game plan.
Just like in previous years, I still believe the best way to get on top of all the things you need to do is to get ORGANISED, (which is not always as easy as it sounds) try and find the perfect balance between working, studying and socialising so you don’t drive yourself crazy. The most important part after that however, is actually sticking to he plan you made, because it’s all well and good having a plan, but if it’s not realistic enough for you to stick to, you might as well redirect your journey to down that rabbit hole because it just makes it harder for you to stay on course.
If you do however find yourself not quite able to follow your mapped out route to success (which I often do) don’t fret, just do as Google Maps does, reassess where you are, where you need to be and the best way for you to get there, because there will be bumps along the road but you will never reach your destination if you just give up. *Please excuse all of the navigation references, it must just be my inner geographer working over time*
I know that this year, what will be the most challenging for me is staying on top of all my readings, I already have an ABUNDANCE and there will only be more to come. I tend to find many of them quite mind numbing if I am really honest but I’m taking the approach of, absorbing them in small chunks and taking regular breaks to ensure the information actually goes in one ear and not out the other, fingers crossed I can get it done with the amount of reading that I actually have to do. I guess we’ll, just have to wait and find out.