As an Arts student, living with two scientists I’m finding that I am always on the defensive about the amount of work I’m expected to do. Continually pointing out the number of contact hours doesn’t equate to the amount of work that I am expected to do! Whether it’s essays or lab scripts that you’re expected to hand in, everyone faces the same pressures to meet high standards and are equally worried about the prospect of finding a job in the ‘real world’ once all their degrees are over. However luxurious the ability to lie in until 1.00pm, if I feel like it, may appear, I increasingly find myself longing for the structure offered by a rigid 9 - 5 job. The hardest thing about having so few time-tabled hours is assessing how much time you should devote to your degree. The official line is 40 hours, so divided up equally across the week that’s…umm about 6 hours a day. Allow a day off at weekends and it rises to around 8. There is however no real limit beyond the one you choose to impose on yourself. So when is it reasonable to stop? Where does the boundary between lazy and in need of a break lie? Talking of time management, the main issue I’m having at the moment is ‘finding’ or to be honest, ‘making’ time to draft my bridge essay. I’m sure I’m not alone in my hatred of essays. That horrible moment when you know that there’s no longer any reasonable excuse for putting the actual writing part of the exercise off any longer. The continual dread of writer’s block setting in as you try to piece together your ideas. As those phrases that seemed so eloquent and pertinent in your head, spiral out of control when you attempt to put them on paper; refusing to be assembled into coherent sentences. It’s amazing how inventive I can be when it comes to finding an infinite number of perfectly reasonable reasons why I’m clearly not ready to begin drafting yet. So why does this imaginative flair always desert me as soon as I sit down in front of a laptop? | " Talking of time management the main issue I’m having at the moment is ‘finding’ or to be honest, ‘making’ time to draft my bridge essay" | |
I really am running out of excuses for this problem, I’ve got all the advice and techniques there to help me: “Don’t think about the 10,000 words, divide it into sections, plan, write whatever comes to mind…etc etc etc!!!” Despite this I still struggle to get started! If I don’t want to spend the whole of Christmas locked in my room despairing over this Bridge Essay draft then I need to get writing, so where to start? How to unite the themes of knighthood, crusades, and children’s literature? Perhaps the main issue is the fear, that once I start to try writing I’ll find out that I’ve got nothing to say, or that what I do write will simply not be worth reading. With a brief that consists of research and write a bridge essay of 10,000 words there are no convenient boxes to tick and no established mark schemes to focus on. As always the only real standards I have are my own, so practical steps then! As, unlike one amazing house mate, I can’t pull an ‘all-nighter’ and get it all down in one go there’s no option but to begin writing now, crazily chanting the mantra 'whatever I write will be good enough’! I need to remember why exactly I wanted to write about this topic in the first place? What fascinating facts, if any, have I found out? But first things first - can a twenty-first century reader, really find inspiration in a hero named Cuthbert? Veronica Isaac |
