My Learning Experience Blog - by Emma Cannaby #10 Double essay doom  (To find out why Emma is writing about her own learning experience - click here)

January 2012

Christmas working

Studying over the Christmas period can be difficult to say the least. There are so many distractions such as decorating the house and the tree, buying gifts, going to parties, meeting friends, seeing family and making cakes and biscuits!! Sometimes the desire to just put off the work until the New Year is too tempting. How do you carry on while there are so many fun things to do instead? And let’s face it; it’s so much more fun to make jars of home-made whisky and blackberry chocolate than writing essays!

As I have explained before I like to prepare myself with targets. I had to finish the lectures and research by the 16th December, one month before my deadline. I then set myself a number of words for each week leading up to the exam. I had 5 weekends and 8,000 words (2 essays, 4,000 words each). I can comfortably thrash out 500 words in a day, so 1,500 words for each weekend, plus an extra 500 in each week, will take me to the 10th January with time to re-write the essays and complete the reference section.

Surprisingly, I found it easy to get all of this done with that plan, although this meant I had to write 1,000 words on holiday in Cornwall, but knowing that this will lead to finishing the masters this year is worth it.

Uploading the document

Speaking to a colleague also doing a Masters degree, I found it interesting the differences between our courses.  She is only doing one module at the moment (out of choice) and she had to print, bind and post in her essay 4 days before the deadline to make sure it is delivered.  As satisfying as the feeling is when binding and posting your essay, I must admit the process where I am able to login (at any time) and just click the submit button, is wonderful.  Within seconds you feel the adrenalin leaving your body and you can sit down without worrying about the work getting lost in the post.

And what if I need to make a change? No problem, make the change to the document. Save it. And upload it again. Done.

I don’t need to send another copy and notify them that it is the real final version.  How easy is that! How wonderful modern technology is! Providing you don’t have a power cut, there is no problem. So I sit here very smugly having finished my last two assignments, they are both sitting in the world wide web somewhere, while my friend is waiting for news of her assignment’s arrival after an excitable journey through machinery, vehicles and delivery by the men in red.

Preparation for dissertation

So what now? I have finished 8 challenging modules over 1 year and 6 months, what else can I possibly need to do? THE DISSERTATION! These are talked about with cringed faces and tales of horror. Taking a positive slant on this, it is no more than a few essays put together. On top of that, I have already written 4,000 words providing I go ahead with the research proposal I wrote in the last module. 

I have been planning this for about a year, so I have also been collecting data and have numerous references I have ready for when I get given the green light. 

If anyone wants to know the best way of approaching this, I would suggest that you capture all your favourite bits of work from each module and collect relevant information from your organisation during the year.

Bring on February!

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