Making that leap from Undergrad to Postgrad
- Tara Hodgson
- Dec 4, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 26, 2021
The leap from school to college / sixth form is talked about a lot in classrooms, the standard of work changes, the way you’re treated around the school changes and you have to start doing more of your own research. This happens again when you go from college to university to do an undergraduate degree, and again this is widely talked about. But, what about moving from Undergrad to Postgrad?
For me the things that stayed the same were the classes to some extent. I come into class with my laptop, load up the software I use to take notes and the internet to Google questions I have during the lecture. I’m sitting with friends I made during my undergraduate degree too so that hasn’t been a drastic change either.
But, I found that the classes themselves had changed. There’s less of the teaching in the sense that you are given all of the information, it’s much more in the line of doing my own research which I’m loving.
I’m finding it difficult to do the assignments, not because of the work and that I don’t know what I’m doing but because there’s so many interesting things to choose from and research. It’s an entire world of possibilities and I’m confined to one essay that fits within a specific word count. There are so many things that I want to write about and go into detail on because it’s just that interesting and I can’t.
The focus being more on doing your own research is something I’m loving but that jump to doing it was difficult. Especially since I’m used to writing essays which never have “I” in them. It’s a lot of stuff to cram into a short space of time when you’re getting used to that change alongside other things in life, but staying calm and pushing through it with some help works. This jump would have seemed way more difficult if I didn’t have the couple of weeks at the start to get us prepared, a couple of lectures to lead into the year and what’s now expected at this level.
Advice I would give myself starting out during my MA degree?
Download all the slides and keep them ordered. Make a summary of the lecture to find it more easily.
Don’t panic, and know where your towel is.
Seriously though, not panicking about the classes would have saved me a lot of stress. By the time I got to class after stressing it all seemed silly.
Never underestimate the power of a good playlist on the way to class.
The library is there. Use it more often. Less studying in town.
Find somewhere that does good tea and live there. Never leave. Buy tea and relax with a good book for class.
Celebrate the little victories, work on the things that caused the defeats
One important thing I’ll probably do another blog about is the thought of being an imposter. That at some point “they’re” going to realise that I’m not actually the person they thought and I don’t belong here. For me this is getting a first in my undergraduate degree; I’m still expecting the university to come to me and say that they got it wrong. There was a mistake and I’m actually meant to have got a way lower grade. I feel like they’re going to say that I shouldn’t have been accepted into the masters course either and that I’ve not been doing as good as I thought.
About that? I’m not alone in those thoughts. It’s surprisingly common and something I’m dedicating a blog entry to because it’s so important. I did get that first, I’m attending class and there is no reason I shouldn’t be there. Yet, those thoughts are always there.
Hey! Tara here and thanks for checking out my blog. I update every Tuesday with posts about studying tips, advice and talk about productivity and organisation too. If you want to keep up to date with my latest blog posts I’d love it if you subscribed to this blog.
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