Life in third year can be stressful! Your degree is ramping up, you have a dissertation to complete (or an equivalent final year project), and there’s the spectre of life after university beginning to appear on the horizon. Will you be ready? Do you know what you want to do? You’re out of your first year, and out of the student accommodation Wolverhampton, Bristol or Cambridge provide and there’s more to lose than ever before!
Today we’re taking a look at how you can enjoy the best life in third year, and not get overwhelmed by these additional worries and responsibilities.
Academic Work
You’ll need to focus on your academic work in this final year – it’s not just your dissertation. In many courses, the weighting of your modules becomes heavier and more significant. This is something you need to understand quickly so you can work smart. It doesn’t make sense to burn yourself out with perfectionism on an essay that’s worth only a few percent of your final mark leaving you without the energy to put the same amount of work into one that’s worth a great deal more to you!
Support is available, especially around your dissertation, so take advantage of it. Your tutors and lecturers are aware this is a step above the work you’ve been doing as a matter of routine and are ready to help, from talking you through your choice of subject, honing a question, and writing plans for each chapter and the overall structure. This helps to set you up for success – it’s much easier to seek help in the early stages than later, when you’ve already written a lot but realised you’ve gone wrong!
Social Life
It’s important to not let your academic work, important as it is, swamp your social life entirely. By your third year you should know how long it takes you to write an essay, read a text, or take some valuable time to revise. Use that knowledge to ensure your timetable gives you time to relax with your friends. Whether it’s a night out, committing to a play or playing on the football team, you need a way to relax, an outlet for the stress of your newly high stakes studies – cutting it out to study more is a terrible false economy that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and depressed.
Getting Ready for Employment
With university drawing to a close, you need to start thinking about the next thing that’s coming: the job market.
Talk to your university careers service: they can help you put together a CV that’ll appeal to the employers you’re interested in, give tips for covering letters and even help you find internships to give you experience in the summer holidays. Spending some time on this can help you feel ready and prepared for the next step in your life, less overwhelmed by stress and able to focus on the things you need to right now.