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Post by Rad on Jan 2, 2008 18:56:18 GMT
Inspired by the fat-fighters thread, and the number of people in the 2008 thread wanting to get on with PhDs, dissertations, A-Levels (curse you, you youngsters) and othersuch gubbins, I thought we should have a study support group and then wait to see how far into January it gets and whether this or the fat-fighters group dies first
Anyway, I am doing a PhD part-time (currently) and started it this autumn. I am looking at the rise in TV shows themed around religion and spirituality in the last decade (eg Make Me A Muslim, God is Green, Undercover Mosque, The Fundamentalists, The Convent etc).
I currently have loads of forms to fill in (including forms to apply for funding next year) and I hate filling in forms, so I keep putting them off. I also need to do my literature review of where I am up to so far. I have two part-time lecturing jobs and am probably going to need a third part-time job soon so I don't have lots of time for it. And my free time keeps getting eaten up by being sociable and being internet-tastic. And doing exercise, of course.
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Post by Sparkle on Jan 2, 2008 18:59:04 GMT
I am doing a PhD in the experience of female football fans in the English professional game. I did it part-time for two years, and am ostensibly "full-time" now, but, much to my supervisors' chagrin, I cannot live on the £2000 annual bursary they give me, and continue to work five days a week.
I am in the home straight with it, though. I've collected all the data and written a third of the thesis. My literature review is proving immensely challenging, by which I mean it makes me cry whenever I think about it.
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Post by Robbing the Dead on Jan 2, 2008 19:05:41 GMT
I am in my finaly year of my undergraduate degree and really need to get on to applying for graduate placements, funding, Masters, just everything.
Every week I keep saying I'm going to start doing loads of vocabulary work but I never get round to it. I really need to get down to some serious work as my final exams approach.
There is one application that I really need to do ASAP as my academic referee has already sent off her part, so I need to start writing my part of the application form.
I hate applying for things, I hate the questions they ask, I find it hard to answer the "what qualities do you have", "why do you want to work for us.." thing.
Basically because I can't work out what I want to do with my life after I graduate I'm applying to teach English for the British Council in the deepest depths of Russia for a year.
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Post by Ceeb on Jan 2, 2008 19:17:41 GMT
I'm currently doing a BA in English in my final year and I keep thinking I'm going to fuck up big time. The first 2 years were fine, but recently I've been very lazy. I fought tooth and nail to change my dissertation from a research project into a creative writing project (because I realised too late into my course that that is what I'm good at) and I've currently done hardly any of it and I think it has to be in by March. Plus I've never even met my dissertation tutor - I have tried to make appointments and stuff but there is the aforementioned laziness and when I made an actual real life appointment she didn't turn up.
Even now, I'm writing one of two 3,000 word essays in for Monday, but I've known about since November and have only written 1,100 of one, not started the other and I'm on here typing this out instead and am probably going to sack it off for the rest of the night and go and watch corrie in a second
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Post by Rad on Jan 2, 2008 19:42:04 GMT
Well, keep telling yourself you don't want to do a fourth year.
One of my dissertation students is on her third attempt, because she totally can't be arsed and won't listen to any advice anyone gives her. But THIRD attempt? Don't let that be you.
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Post by francopopfille on Jan 2, 2008 19:55:15 GMT
Basically because I can't work out what I want to do with my life after I graduate I'm applying to teach English for the British Council in the deepest depths of Russia for a year. I'm in the second year of my degree and doing this as well, except I'm going to France instead. I really need to finish the form, but don't know what to say. If I was being honest, I'd write "I want to go to Strasbourg because it looks lovely and I want to get paid decent money for very few hours" but I don't think that'll do. I'm doing first year Russian as well and feel like I'm really falling behind with the oral component especially. Is there some magic trick that I'm missing?
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Post by Ceeb on Jan 2, 2008 20:38:52 GMT
Well, keep telling yourself you don't want to do a fourth year. One of my dissertation students is on her third attempt, because she totally can't be arsed and won't listen to any advice anyone gives her. But THIRD attempt? Don't let that be you. Yes, exactly. I know a couple of people who are in the third year with me now who are re-sitters who are even lazier than me and it makes me wonder why they are bothering, especially as our uni is capping the marks so they can only get a third on the work they repeat which must be really disheartening. I'm not the sort of person who won't listen to advice when given it though, so thats a good thing. I do have a plan of action now in my head, though I should probably write it on paper of when exactly I'm going to see my tutor and what to write when Plus its not as if I'm not enjoying the dissertation part when I actually get down to writing some - more so than the actual critical work I do which pisses me off most of the time now, although I still do it in a "it'll be worth it when its over" sort of way. This has been quite thereputic actually, reading back my first post, it has spurred me on to do a few more hundred words tonight before I give up completely as I realised how pathetic my word count thus far looks, so if nothing, a bit of good has come from this thread so far
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Post by Robbing the Dead on Jan 2, 2008 20:49:26 GMT
I'm doing first year Russian as well and feel like I'm really falling behind with the oral component especially. Is there some magic trick that I'm missing? Learn, learn, learn! And practice talking to yourself around the house. And listen to lots of t.A.T.u.
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Post by Muinimula on Jan 2, 2008 21:12:23 GMT
Which group can I join if I'm neither wanting to lose weight nor studying?
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Post by Sparkle on Jan 2, 2008 21:13:18 GMT
You can set up your own one. For people with writer's block?
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Post by Rad on Jan 2, 2008 21:19:48 GMT
You can be our motivational coach/personal trainer.
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Post by Gordon on Jan 2, 2008 21:50:17 GMT
Well, keep telling yourself you don't want to do a fourth year. One of my dissertation students is on her third attempt, because she totally can't be arsed and won't listen to any advice anyone gives her. But THIRD attempt? Don't let that be you. That's me! I have been through 2 first years and 2 second years - when I go back this month I'll be taking a variety pack of one first year, two second and one third year modules. This is a "nightmare" but I'm just incredibly lazy. But in my defense, I have started to develop an interest in History that was never there before - I feel more ready to soak up the information. At Stirling University they have a slightly different grade system, where I actually got a 1A for English Literature - since transferring to Glasgow the best I have achieved are 2 B's. I thought all I needed was 1 more B to pull through to third but was "shocked" when I failed to note it was a C-point average needed, which also goes to show how far I let things slide. Once I got a B last year I just dropped off and did lots of staying in the house.
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Post by Adrian on Jan 2, 2008 21:59:12 GMT
My literature review is proving immensely challenging, by which I mean it makes me cry whenever I think about it. Lit reviews are the utter cunts of the academic world. I did about 4 drafts of mine before it was deemed right enough. It's also a pain in the arse as Draft 1 could be written in, say, 2004 but when 2006 comes around, it's 'academically' out-of-date.
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Post by Sparkle on Jan 2, 2008 22:00:33 GMT
Don't bloody get me started. People keep WRITING BOOKS, the fuckers. Why can't they stop for, say, about six months while I catch up?
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Post by Robbing the Dead on Jan 2, 2008 22:06:44 GMT
Argh! I'm trying to write my personal statement for my MA application but I just have a complete mental block. Over the summer I worked in the admin office for a department at my uni and I had to organise the MA applications and I must have read 30 personal statements, but I can't think of one of my own. Boo!
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Post by Rad on Jan 2, 2008 22:10:43 GMT
Well, thanks to the motivational LC chatroom I have organised a trip to London to go to the British Library and get the books I can't get anywhere else. AND have a mini-LC meet to boot. Thanks LC.
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Post by Bungle on Jan 2, 2008 22:11:05 GMT
I have given in a draft of my PhD thesis but - get this - it actually comes BACK. With NOTES. And CHANGES to be made. Some major changes. How rude. I really can't be arsed. It's coming back soon though and I've kept good time so far. So I will soon be complaining.
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Post by Sparkle on Jan 2, 2008 22:12:45 GMT
I have given in a draft of my PhD thesis but - get this - it actually comes BACK. With NOTES. And CHANGES to be made. Some major changes. How rude. I really can't be arsed. It's coming back soon though and I've kept good time so far. So I will soon be complaining. Heh, I always get really pissed off when my supervisors tell me what is wrong with my draft. I'm always like, "But you don't UNDERSTAND the point I'm trying to make. Why am I so misunderstood? Clearly I am a visionary." I am beginning to think I might just do what they tell me, then write whatever I want in my next piece of research instead.
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Post by mackenzie on Jan 2, 2008 22:16:08 GMT
I'm in my final year of a BSc in Film, and to put it quite simply I need to pull my fucking finger out if I want a 2:1. I suppose getting off the internet would be a good start, but sod that.
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Post by Adrian on Jan 2, 2008 22:27:22 GMT
Heh, I always get really pissed off when my supervisors tell me what is wrong with my draft. I'm always like, "But you don't UNDERSTAND the point I'm trying to make. Why am I so misunderstood? Clearly I am a visionary." This is what I did to get my final draft in. I just did what I was told. I love the biting irony that a PhD is supposedly the pinaccle of academic / intellectual achievement, but to get it finished One Does What One is Told.
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Post by Bridgey on Jan 2, 2008 22:51:33 GMT
Well, keep telling yourself you don't want to do a fourth year. One of my dissertation students is on her third attempt, because she totally can't be arsed and won't listen to any advice anyone gives her. But THIRD attempt? Don't let that be you. Suddenly, I feel so much better about my first (and hopefully) only attempt at an undergraduate dissertation. My methodology is as vague as ever, filling out the ethics committee form gives me the fear and I went in a huff with a lecturer because she misspelled my name in an email reply about why I had to miss a meeting in October. Of course, I never told said lecturer this because it felt so irrational, so sorry. Dammit, literature reviews give me evils too. It's just thinking about what to include - whether they're the theories that have become second-nature to you or including almost every written source that sounds even more intelligent than you that you consulted. I planned to write it during October - I just finished my first draft before Christmas there. WOEFUL. Note to any Arts/Humanities/any subject that doesn't have a right answer students with terrible social skills - don't choose a disastertation that involves audience research...it's daunting. Bridgey xxx
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Post by Rad on Jan 2, 2008 23:06:33 GMT
Oh, I did audience research for both of my degrees, and I'll be doing it for my next one. It's fine, as long as you figure it all out beforehand.
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Post by Nurse Dunkley on Jan 3, 2008 3:39:30 GMT
I very much hope this thread can bully and whip me into doing all my work. I have two 2500 word essays in for the 14th, although I'm not too worried about them because I'm going home next week to do them. They're rather important though, since the last three pieces I've handed in have been rushed rubbish.
It's the MA applications that I'm more worried abut. All the places I am applying for are rather vague about what they want, apart from the amount of written pieces they want (which I suppose is the most important aspect considering one is a creative writing course and the others are scriptwriting). I'll also send off a personal statement, but is there anything else I should consider?
Good luck to anybody with exams coming up!
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Post by Robbing the Dead on Jan 3, 2008 15:59:55 GMT
I am applying for a MA at the same university I'm at now, but they still require me to go to the registry and get a printed transcript of my results and then scan it and upload it as a jpeg, even though the admins can just log onto the uni database thing and find it all on my profile. I've done it myself when I worked for the uni. They should have a fast-track scheme for students who are already at the uni.
"Oh hai, Russian department, that Slabbing the Dead wants to do a MA in our department, he's alright inne?" -"Yeh." "OK we'll accept him."
Something like that.
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Post by Rad on Jan 3, 2008 16:26:19 GMT
Gareth - you're doing some film/tv related degree aren't you? As it's pretty much my field, I would be happy to look over work for you and give you any advice.
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