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How are you feeling about going back to studying
Former Member
Posts: 75 Budding Regular
Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. I am not studying anymore, but I do miss uni. I'm interested to see how other feel about starting studying again, because i know that when I would go back to uni, I had alot of feelings.
Post edited by JustV on
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Thanks for your post. It is a really relevant one for me. I went back to uni on Monday to start my final year of a MA programme. I had the typical nerves. However, I have now settled back in as it has become incorporated into my routine again. How are you?
I studied psychology at uni, I really enjoyed it too.
Glad you feel it went well for you and that you enjoyed it! Do you mind me asking what your dissertation was about? Just intrigued.
In terms of the Masters, we get freedom in the sense of the topic we choose to focus on. It is quite rigid in terms of the lessons and core reading list. It is very tiring but more than worth it in the end! Also, very interesting content because I am at the stage where I have chosen my specialism (SEN) and can just focus on narrowing it down for each assessment. At the moment, my focus is dyspraxia in primary schools and it is really fascinating as I have only supported learners with dyspraxia in secondary schools previously
Also @Past User, as long as you plan it out and work on it in advance and one step at a time, you will be just fine. For example, whilst you can't get started on the results, data collection or data analysis early, you can get started on the literature review early and you can spread out the reading and the writing for the ethics process. It is a lot of pressure they put on you but, when it comes down to it although it is worth more than some of your other assessments, it is not the only thing included in your final grade. Does your university take into account your results from the first year and second year too?
Good luck everyone!
At first with my diss, it was a bit daunting with how much I had to do, I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it in time. But my university gave alot of support and guidance through our final year diss, which was really helpful. I also had a really good project supervisor. So this gave me confidence to start as I new that I could ask for help if i needed it.
I did alot of research at first and did it pretty soon after starting my final year, i did a like 2 months of just reading before starting my diss, so I was really well informed.
Form me the biggest block was actually starting writing, i had no idea where to start and i felt alot of pressure to get started, but once I did start writing it, it was much less pressure.
Advice i would give is start early, once you know what your doing start doing a little bit of reading and once you feel well informed enough you can start making a plan. I broke my plan up into intro, methods, analysis and discussion. I then further broke it up into the topic I wanted to cover in each section. Finally, i think its good to finish your diss early if you can, because then you can spend some time re-reading it and editing it. I finished mine, left it for a day or 2 and then re-read it and edited it. This helped me as I could check for errors that i missed previously.
Another bit of advice is get a referencing tool, i used mendely and it was sooo god, cut dow n my refencing time massively!
My diss was on how cognitive control is affected by food addiction. In it i defined cognitive control as process like inhibition control and suppression. I separated participant into low and high food addiction using a questionnaire. I showed participants pics of food and measured their reaction time to task done after showing them the food pic. This was all done on a laptop. It was so interesting reading about food addiction, its somewhat similar to substance abuse disorders, as it cause the brain to release alot of dopamine.
Unfortunately our result didn't find anything to support our hypothesis, but I learnt alot from my diss and am happy with how it turned out.
Your diss sounds really interesting and its super cool that you've been able to expand your study to primary schools. Are you getting to work with children in the primary or just looking at research written about them?
I can imagine that a master is alot of work, my friend is doing one and she has a big workload. But its good that you are enjoying it and it is definitely worth the work and effort you're putting into it.
Oh, your research sounds interesting. I would be particularly fascinated to know whether particular foods (e.g. foods with food colouring and additives) are more likely to be classified in the more addictive group. I know I am attracted to sugary foods! How did you find the structure of the dissertation and choosing a question?
In terms of the dyspraxia assessment, it is not my dissertation yet, unfortunately! But it is still interesting and based on research written about them. I am finding out so much more
I was kind of given the topic of cognitive control and addiction and at first we wanted to do loook at drug addiction but i was told that that wasn't possible for ethical reasons. I didn't find it too hard, the .hardest part for me was doing the result section as I didn't now what to write or how to write it. Luckily that was the part that i was given the most support with.
How is your masters going?
Personally, I want to avoid it for now.