Well another week has past and by jo it was a busy one!
I had a fantastic night with friends on Tuesday, the food was amazing and the company first class! Its amazing what an evening with friends can do to the soul :D
Wednesday is my only day during the week that I have to catch up on university work and any work I need to do for placement. This week wasn't too busy work wise and I had a rather relaxed Wednesday - reviewing the topics for the up-and-coming lessons at placement and planning for my weekend at my parents (Its mothers day this Sunday and I'm spending it with my Mum :) ) alongside tidying my room! (I may be a busy student but I refuse to be messy!)
Thursday and Friday are my placement days and were fantastic! I feel so comfortable with the groups I work with now and its such great fun to try new strategies with them and see how they adapt. Placement is rather tiring but also so very rewarding and I cannot wait to be a full time teacher!!
I also received some good news on Friday in that I have been accepted back at my old job! So I will be working on weekends from next week! Its going to help out so much having a job again just to help with little things and build some savings back up after all my car trouble before christmas! (Long story short my car broke down twice in the space of a month once for the engine (OUCH!!) and second for the battery so it cost a pretty penny to repair!!)
So things are set to get even busier now i will have University, Placement and a Job to contend with! But then again I've never been one to sit still ;)
Happy Mothers Day to all those Mum's out there for tomorrow - I'm going to take mine shopping :D
K
x
Saturday 5 March 2016
Monday 29 February 2016
Observation No.2
Well I'm back!
Geeze two posts in a matter of a few days ain't you folks lucky!! ;)
So updates! I left my last post discussing my teacher training and the fact I had an observation the following day well I guess that's as good as any place to start!
So my observation went really REALLY well: the group were fantastic as always and I was really impressed with their knowledge and the way they took to the tasks i set them and my observer thought the same too! I won't beat about the bush my last observation wasn't the best, it was my first formal observation though so I didn't expect it to all go smoothly or to get a good grade however I took away the feedback and worked on it for this one and it worked! My observer recognised that I'd worked on the feedback from the last one and said it was a great improvement! There are as always more things I can do but my grade was much higher than previously and I was (and still am!) over the moon!
So I've now managed to get 2 formal university observations done and I've cracked 3 mentor observations too! We have to have 4 of each through-out the course and the university observations are done by - you guessed it, university observers! Our mentor observations can be done by any member of teaching staff at our placement but it is usually the teacher/tutor we are working with the most :)
After a rather busy Saturday helping a friend move house and relaxing with them Sunday was spent doing nothing much at all - movie and tv day before the week began again!
Which brings us to today, Monday!
Today's been okay... I've been at uni most of the day and we're currently working through presentations on how we incorporate either English and Maths, Diversity and Technology into our subjects. We've each got one topic and must present it to the whole class. It links in with 3 of our tasks for assessment on how we incorporate each of those areas into our teaching. There have been some fantastic examples so far! Once home I've spent most of the evening clearing up my teaching file ready for a tutorial with my uni tutor in a few weeks and making sure I have everything in there so far and working on some materials for placement! Tomorrow will be much the same with uni during the day then I'm off to my friends house in the evening :D I have some placement work I need to do before I go over but I'm sure it will be an exciting evening regardless :D
Till next time!
Toodle pip!
K
Geeze two posts in a matter of a few days ain't you folks lucky!! ;)
So updates! I left my last post discussing my teacher training and the fact I had an observation the following day well I guess that's as good as any place to start!
So my observation went really REALLY well: the group were fantastic as always and I was really impressed with their knowledge and the way they took to the tasks i set them and my observer thought the same too! I won't beat about the bush my last observation wasn't the best, it was my first formal observation though so I didn't expect it to all go smoothly or to get a good grade however I took away the feedback and worked on it for this one and it worked! My observer recognised that I'd worked on the feedback from the last one and said it was a great improvement! There are as always more things I can do but my grade was much higher than previously and I was (and still am!) over the moon!
So I've now managed to get 2 formal university observations done and I've cracked 3 mentor observations too! We have to have 4 of each through-out the course and the university observations are done by - you guessed it, university observers! Our mentor observations can be done by any member of teaching staff at our placement but it is usually the teacher/tutor we are working with the most :)
After a rather busy Saturday helping a friend move house and relaxing with them Sunday was spent doing nothing much at all - movie and tv day before the week began again!
Which brings us to today, Monday!
Today's been okay... I've been at uni most of the day and we're currently working through presentations on how we incorporate either English and Maths, Diversity and Technology into our subjects. We've each got one topic and must present it to the whole class. It links in with 3 of our tasks for assessment on how we incorporate each of those areas into our teaching. There have been some fantastic examples so far! Once home I've spent most of the evening clearing up my teaching file ready for a tutorial with my uni tutor in a few weeks and making sure I have everything in there so far and working on some materials for placement! Tomorrow will be much the same with uni during the day then I'm off to my friends house in the evening :D I have some placement work I need to do before I go over but I'm sure it will be an exciting evening regardless :D
Till next time!
Toodle pip!
K
Wednesday 24 February 2016
That was a long break...
Hello Folks,
I don't know if there are still anyone out there that reads this blog - I wouldn't blame you seeing as it has quite literally been over a year since I last posted!
Well since the 9th of October 2014 things have changed a lot.... a lot a lot!! I left my last post on my first week of my masters degree induction, I was still working part time of an evening in my local supermarket and going to university during the day. The lady that I mentioned that I hit it off with in my induction week turned out to be one of my biggest supports through the whole degree - Her name is Melanie :) She has become a very close friend of mine and although we now live at opposite ends of the country we still keep in touch and I still know I can go to her with anything and she with me. So a not-so-quick overview of the masters then - it was bloody intense and at times incredibly lonely which I touched on in my last post, that is where people like Melanie are key - I couldn't have done it without her or my other friends spurring me on. So I took two compulsory modules in the first semester (From October to the beginning of January) which were Criminal Law (as I was on the Criminal Law and Procedure LLM) and then Law, Society and the State a compulsory module for all the LLM'ers. The Criminal Law module covered everything I'd already covered at undergrad so was a nice refresher but was also nice to discuss certain elements in more detail. The group was very small with only around 4 of us and then the lecturer so you had to do your homework! The Law, Society and the State module was very interesting indeed - each session covered a different area of law and it was a very wide range of areas! We had Animal Rights, Family Law , Sports Law, Human Rights, Education Law and a few more (which have escaped me!) so a vast range of areas but which all linked to specific staff's research interests. All in all a very good first semester and I came away at the end of January with a solid Distinction and high Merit! Yay!
Second semester (January to April) we, as a class, were allowed to pick our two modules however it was based on the two with the highest votes which did cause some fuss but you win some you lose some (My top two options were the ones picked however there was only 1 module I really didn't want to do and I wasn't alone in that thinking either!) So Legislative Approaches to Terrorism and A Legal Research project it was! Terrorism legislation is an area of law that has always fascinated me and having taken Organised Crime and Terror (OCT) in my final year at undergrad I was more than happy to build on my knowledge! The Legal Research project is just that - an individual research project on an area of law you find interesting, a mini dissertation as it was pitched to us (and was true!). I focused on the area of Cyber Terrorism and whether the current definition of terrorism is sufficient in protecting the UK from Cyber threats. I also compared this to US legislation and how they tackle Cyber threats. A fiercely interesting area however one deemed to not be sufficient enough to carry it through to form my final dissertation (drats!). During this semester I also applied to start a PGCE/PCET Teacher Training, at the same university, from the September onwards for another year, I was interviewed and received an offer the day after! So semester two ended on a big high with two solid distinctions and a place on a teacher training course for September...all going well!
Final semester (April to October) was a strange one as it involved the one thing I swore at the end of my undergraduate degree to never do again (as I'm sure many do!)..... a Dissertation. For our LLM this was the only grade that counted - it was 100% of the mark for our entire Masters Degree so every single mark counted and the others were almost redundant. For the dissertation we had two workshops on how to write and broadly structure our dissertations alongside having to write a plan for our potential supervisors to assess to see whether it would be a project that could work. As I said earlier I originally wanted to carry on the Cyber Terrorism theme however my supervisor was unsure and didn't think it was something that could be continued so we bashed heads and came up with.... Mars One: Crimes in Outer Space. I know...Cool right?!? I wont lie whilst it was very interesting to research and so many crazy things were thrown about with it however, it was still very difficult to write and required a lot of collaboration and meetings with my supervisor to make sure I was on the right track and also to keep my confidence up with it too - the second guessing you do when writing something of your own is huge and sometimes it just takes one person to say "your doing okay" for things to be back on track and I cant fault my supervisor on anything. So after a very long summer of dissertation works and still working my day job (SO many hours!!) September finally hit - The month where the LLM would end and another degree would begin (I am completely bonkers - I know this!) September was a very tough and intense month, I moved back to Sunderland in the second week of September and had around two weeks where I was completing my dissertation and also starting my new teacher training degree - Lots to take in! However on September 28th Melanie came up from down south where she was working and we handed our dissertation's in. Our Masters degrees were in the hands of the Awards Board now so we did what any respectable person would do and went out and celebrated!
It was around the beginning of November that we found out our grades.... I GOT A DISTINCTION! I now have almost as many letters after my name that are contained within it! (LLB, G.PLL and LLM) It was such a relief and with graduation only a few weeks away it was definitely something to celebrate. Graduation was on November 26th and was a lovely day although sad to say that only two of our lecturers could turn up and they had to leave quickly after the ceremony too even more sad to say that Melanie couldn't make it for graduation too. Still a good day!
So currently I am working on my PGCE/PCET Teacher Training qualification! I am a Trainee Teacher in Law in a local sixth form college and absolutely love it! Its taken so much hard work to get to this point (and undoubtedly more to come!) but I am so happy now - I cant wait to start teaching full time and be in a job I love! The amount of support I've received from uni tutors, the staff at the college and of course my family and friends has been overwhelming and I am now in the final stretch - Uni finishes in June and Graduation is not long after that (dates aren't confirmed yet!) so fingers are crossed for the next few months!!
I know I've said it previously but i will try to keep updating this from now on - fingers crossed the next post will be a good one too as i have an observation tomorrow!!
Thank you for reading
K x
I don't know if there are still anyone out there that reads this blog - I wouldn't blame you seeing as it has quite literally been over a year since I last posted!
Well since the 9th of October 2014 things have changed a lot.... a lot a lot!! I left my last post on my first week of my masters degree induction, I was still working part time of an evening in my local supermarket and going to university during the day. The lady that I mentioned that I hit it off with in my induction week turned out to be one of my biggest supports through the whole degree - Her name is Melanie :) She has become a very close friend of mine and although we now live at opposite ends of the country we still keep in touch and I still know I can go to her with anything and she with me. So a not-so-quick overview of the masters then - it was bloody intense and at times incredibly lonely which I touched on in my last post, that is where people like Melanie are key - I couldn't have done it without her or my other friends spurring me on. So I took two compulsory modules in the first semester (From October to the beginning of January) which were Criminal Law (as I was on the Criminal Law and Procedure LLM) and then Law, Society and the State a compulsory module for all the LLM'ers. The Criminal Law module covered everything I'd already covered at undergrad so was a nice refresher but was also nice to discuss certain elements in more detail. The group was very small with only around 4 of us and then the lecturer so you had to do your homework! The Law, Society and the State module was very interesting indeed - each session covered a different area of law and it was a very wide range of areas! We had Animal Rights, Family Law , Sports Law, Human Rights, Education Law and a few more (which have escaped me!) so a vast range of areas but which all linked to specific staff's research interests. All in all a very good first semester and I came away at the end of January with a solid Distinction and high Merit! Yay!
Second semester (January to April) we, as a class, were allowed to pick our two modules however it was based on the two with the highest votes which did cause some fuss but you win some you lose some (My top two options were the ones picked however there was only 1 module I really didn't want to do and I wasn't alone in that thinking either!) So Legislative Approaches to Terrorism and A Legal Research project it was! Terrorism legislation is an area of law that has always fascinated me and having taken Organised Crime and Terror (OCT) in my final year at undergrad I was more than happy to build on my knowledge! The Legal Research project is just that - an individual research project on an area of law you find interesting, a mini dissertation as it was pitched to us (and was true!). I focused on the area of Cyber Terrorism and whether the current definition of terrorism is sufficient in protecting the UK from Cyber threats. I also compared this to US legislation and how they tackle Cyber threats. A fiercely interesting area however one deemed to not be sufficient enough to carry it through to form my final dissertation (drats!). During this semester I also applied to start a PGCE/PCET Teacher Training, at the same university, from the September onwards for another year, I was interviewed and received an offer the day after! So semester two ended on a big high with two solid distinctions and a place on a teacher training course for September...all going well!
Final semester (April to October) was a strange one as it involved the one thing I swore at the end of my undergraduate degree to never do again (as I'm sure many do!)..... a Dissertation. For our LLM this was the only grade that counted - it was 100% of the mark for our entire Masters Degree so every single mark counted and the others were almost redundant. For the dissertation we had two workshops on how to write and broadly structure our dissertations alongside having to write a plan for our potential supervisors to assess to see whether it would be a project that could work. As I said earlier I originally wanted to carry on the Cyber Terrorism theme however my supervisor was unsure and didn't think it was something that could be continued so we bashed heads and came up with.... Mars One: Crimes in Outer Space. I know...Cool right?!? I wont lie whilst it was very interesting to research and so many crazy things were thrown about with it however, it was still very difficult to write and required a lot of collaboration and meetings with my supervisor to make sure I was on the right track and also to keep my confidence up with it too - the second guessing you do when writing something of your own is huge and sometimes it just takes one person to say "your doing okay" for things to be back on track and I cant fault my supervisor on anything. So after a very long summer of dissertation works and still working my day job (SO many hours!!) September finally hit - The month where the LLM would end and another degree would begin (I am completely bonkers - I know this!) September was a very tough and intense month, I moved back to Sunderland in the second week of September and had around two weeks where I was completing my dissertation and also starting my new teacher training degree - Lots to take in! However on September 28th Melanie came up from down south where she was working and we handed our dissertation's in. Our Masters degrees were in the hands of the Awards Board now so we did what any respectable person would do and went out and celebrated!
It was around the beginning of November that we found out our grades.... I GOT A DISTINCTION! I now have almost as many letters after my name that are contained within it! (LLB, G.PLL and LLM) It was such a relief and with graduation only a few weeks away it was definitely something to celebrate. Graduation was on November 26th and was a lovely day although sad to say that only two of our lecturers could turn up and they had to leave quickly after the ceremony too even more sad to say that Melanie couldn't make it for graduation too. Still a good day!
So currently I am working on my PGCE/PCET Teacher Training qualification! I am a Trainee Teacher in Law in a local sixth form college and absolutely love it! Its taken so much hard work to get to this point (and undoubtedly more to come!) but I am so happy now - I cant wait to start teaching full time and be in a job I love! The amount of support I've received from uni tutors, the staff at the college and of course my family and friends has been overwhelming and I am now in the final stretch - Uni finishes in June and Graduation is not long after that (dates aren't confirmed yet!) so fingers are crossed for the next few months!!
I know I've said it previously but i will try to keep updating this from now on - fingers crossed the next post will be a good one too as i have an observation tomorrow!!
Thank you for reading
K x
Thursday 9 October 2014
Open Days and Inductions!
Hello!
Was it really two weeks ago that I blogged! Yikes!
So Saturday just past (4th) was one of the universities open days and I'd been asked to help out again this year for the Faculty of Business and Law - Which im genuinely proud to have been asked to do. As anyone who has been to an open day or worked an open day they can be rather busy events! It was a dreary rainy day in Sunderland though so although it wasn't heaving, there were still a fair amount of people milling about! With the subject talks taking place, things calmed down and I spoke to a few students wishing to study law. It is lovely to speak to people who share the same interests as you do and I end up getting lost in the discussion if law, student life and most often parental worries!
Based on my experience at university I try my best to answer all questions posed to me and pass on any "hints and tips" (im not quite sure how else to term this?) I found through-out my three years, whether it be about the best accommodation or the best bars to go to! This Saturday I also helped take students and parents on a tour of the university campus again helping to answer any questions raised and making sure nobody got lost!
All in all it was a great day, busy and good fun :)
I also started my Masters induction this week! I've been super excited to get back to university and get back into writing and researching again! The summer has been too long but a great break at the same time. It was a two day induction which was just right for the information we were being given, not too fast and not to labouring or boring. I was really worried that I wouldn't know anyone as well on the course and that i would be the lonely kid in the corner....this was dispelled before we had even entered the room for induction! Me and another lady on the course got chatting straight away and we both have similar interests and similar worries! FANTASTIC!
I'm very excited to get started on my first two modules and to explore other areas of law that I haven't previously and to also go back to modules I've already covered but what I am EXTREMELY excited for is in choosing my option modules for my second semester and to start tailoring my masters to my research interests and to what I would like to base my dissertation on, but that doesn't come until around Christmas time ;)
Something that I didn't think about with regards to the masters, but was mentioned, was the "loneliness" of the course due to the differences in each others research areas and the little contact time with lecturers and classmates. I really hadn't thought about that side of the course and it doesn't worry me per se (I'm someone who will speak to anyone really and still have very good friends at the university) but im glad that there will be some social aspect to the course in that we can still go for drinks and meet up to discuss work etc. both as students and with the lecturers.
In all honesty im just wanting to get started and sink my teeth into working again - I'm sure I will be welcoming the breaks in a few weeks time, I'm sure the blogs will tell that story ;)
Oh and just a quick end note to this post - I passed the first stage in applying to be a Student Ambassador and have an assessment center and interview on Tuesday! Keep your fingers crossed for me? Ta!
K
Was it really two weeks ago that I blogged! Yikes!
So Saturday just past (4th) was one of the universities open days and I'd been asked to help out again this year for the Faculty of Business and Law - Which im genuinely proud to have been asked to do. As anyone who has been to an open day or worked an open day they can be rather busy events! It was a dreary rainy day in Sunderland though so although it wasn't heaving, there were still a fair amount of people milling about! With the subject talks taking place, things calmed down and I spoke to a few students wishing to study law. It is lovely to speak to people who share the same interests as you do and I end up getting lost in the discussion if law, student life and most often parental worries!
Based on my experience at university I try my best to answer all questions posed to me and pass on any "hints and tips" (im not quite sure how else to term this?) I found through-out my three years, whether it be about the best accommodation or the best bars to go to! This Saturday I also helped take students and parents on a tour of the university campus again helping to answer any questions raised and making sure nobody got lost!
All in all it was a great day, busy and good fun :)
I also started my Masters induction this week! I've been super excited to get back to university and get back into writing and researching again! The summer has been too long but a great break at the same time. It was a two day induction which was just right for the information we were being given, not too fast and not to labouring or boring. I was really worried that I wouldn't know anyone as well on the course and that i would be the lonely kid in the corner....this was dispelled before we had even entered the room for induction! Me and another lady on the course got chatting straight away and we both have similar interests and similar worries! FANTASTIC!
I'm very excited to get started on my first two modules and to explore other areas of law that I haven't previously and to also go back to modules I've already covered but what I am EXTREMELY excited for is in choosing my option modules for my second semester and to start tailoring my masters to my research interests and to what I would like to base my dissertation on, but that doesn't come until around Christmas time ;)
Something that I didn't think about with regards to the masters, but was mentioned, was the "loneliness" of the course due to the differences in each others research areas and the little contact time with lecturers and classmates. I really hadn't thought about that side of the course and it doesn't worry me per se (I'm someone who will speak to anyone really and still have very good friends at the university) but im glad that there will be some social aspect to the course in that we can still go for drinks and meet up to discuss work etc. both as students and with the lecturers.
In all honesty im just wanting to get started and sink my teeth into working again - I'm sure I will be welcoming the breaks in a few weeks time, I'm sure the blogs will tell that story ;)
Oh and just a quick end note to this post - I passed the first stage in applying to be a Student Ambassador and have an assessment center and interview on Tuesday! Keep your fingers crossed for me? Ta!
K
Thursday 25 September 2014
Okay...so we've established im not good at this blogging stuff...
Right,
So its been over 8 month since I last wrote a blog post, and before that it was October, so yeah I'm not so good at keeping up with blogging - I think its rather difficult to keep going with, much harder than I thought it would be! I see other academic's who are able to find time to blog and think "why cant I find the time?!?" Well I'm going to make a concious effort to now blog more often, hopefully once a week.
Okay so a quick update to bring you up to speed on things from January onwards - to be blunt things went very hectic! So I handed in all of my January assignments, and they came back great! I got 1st's and 2:1's which i was very proud of and it helped kick start the new term in a positive way. Things were very busy and it was a case of getting through everyday as best as you can. The work load is really intense and you have to keep your eye on the ball so you don't fall behind as its easily done - I recommend working on things little and often, my method was to spend AT LEAST 30 minutes on each module an evening, which sounds a lot but really isnt! Days off were spent doing all my prep for the week ahead which allowed for me to spend only 30 minutes each night on my subjects. With 6 subjects spending only 30 minutes on each would be 3 hours a night. (easily accommodated for, if you want to, which is usually the problem!). Anyway after all the January assignments were handed in things eased off and it was just the usual hustle and bustle of lectures and seminars for a few weeks.
In February we had the infamous London trip again which for myself and a lot of my friends was something we had been looking forward to for pretty much the whole year (no joke!). Its always a good trip and is a great way to unwind for a few days and get away from all the university stress - this year it didn't disappoint and was a fantastic final London trip for me!
March and April are a bit of a blur for me as it was just pure stress and panic to make sure all my assignments were completed and also to make sure that my dissertation was complete! These months were a mixture of panic dissertation meetings with my supervisor, copious amounts of tea and very very late nights/earl mornings. I think I'm someone who is always very prepared and usually ahead of the game but it all crumbled as the deadlines hit, as the last set of assignments for your final year and knowing that these modules make up 80% of your final degree it adds a HUGE amount of pressure to you and you become far more critical of your work (or I did at least) and virtually all of my assignments were handed in on the days of the deadlines which I've never done for any previous set of assignments.HOWEVER I've never felt such relief in handing in assignments and its something I will never forget!
May was a mixture of happiness and sadness, we all finished university and no longer had to attend lectures or seminars and had our final Exam, we all decided to hit the local bar after the exam (well we did deserve it!) and celebrate our success over the past three years and chat about what we were all doing next! We also had our graduation ball which again was a fantastic end to the three years, and was a great night of food and drinks with a few tears here and there thrown in. It was lovely seeing everyone dressed up and having a good time and lovely to celebrate with the lecturers also.
July was all about one thing.... GRADUATION!!! What an amazing day it was too! Celebrating all my friends success and my own and have my 3 seconds on the stage (my dad recorded it and it literally was 3 seconds!) but regardless of the time on stage it was just such a fantastic day and im so proud of all my friends for their achievements. Quite a lot of people i spoke to at graduation were all so happy and quite a lot of us were even a tad emotional - Its definitely that sort of day! The ceremony side of the day flew by and very quickly it was time to head home - Or my parents for head home ;) Quite a few of my friends were going out for drinks afterwards so i decided that i would join them and just get the train home, some of the lecturers came out later on as well and we all had a fantastic evening :)
Through my three years at university there have been a handful of people that have supported me no end. friends and family helped me through the tough times and kept me going and my degree is not just for myself but also for them. With the right friends and family you can do anything.
So its been over 8 month since I last wrote a blog post, and before that it was October, so yeah I'm not so good at keeping up with blogging - I think its rather difficult to keep going with, much harder than I thought it would be! I see other academic's who are able to find time to blog and think "why cant I find the time?!?" Well I'm going to make a concious effort to now blog more often, hopefully once a week.
Okay so a quick update to bring you up to speed on things from January onwards - to be blunt things went very hectic! So I handed in all of my January assignments, and they came back great! I got 1st's and 2:1's which i was very proud of and it helped kick start the new term in a positive way. Things were very busy and it was a case of getting through everyday as best as you can. The work load is really intense and you have to keep your eye on the ball so you don't fall behind as its easily done - I recommend working on things little and often, my method was to spend AT LEAST 30 minutes on each module an evening, which sounds a lot but really isnt! Days off were spent doing all my prep for the week ahead which allowed for me to spend only 30 minutes each night on my subjects. With 6 subjects spending only 30 minutes on each would be 3 hours a night. (easily accommodated for, if you want to, which is usually the problem!). Anyway after all the January assignments were handed in things eased off and it was just the usual hustle and bustle of lectures and seminars for a few weeks.
In February we had the infamous London trip again which for myself and a lot of my friends was something we had been looking forward to for pretty much the whole year (no joke!). Its always a good trip and is a great way to unwind for a few days and get away from all the university stress - this year it didn't disappoint and was a fantastic final London trip for me!
March and April are a bit of a blur for me as it was just pure stress and panic to make sure all my assignments were completed and also to make sure that my dissertation was complete! These months were a mixture of panic dissertation meetings with my supervisor, copious amounts of tea and very very late nights/earl mornings. I think I'm someone who is always very prepared and usually ahead of the game but it all crumbled as the deadlines hit, as the last set of assignments for your final year and knowing that these modules make up 80% of your final degree it adds a HUGE amount of pressure to you and you become far more critical of your work (or I did at least) and virtually all of my assignments were handed in on the days of the deadlines which I've never done for any previous set of assignments.HOWEVER I've never felt such relief in handing in assignments and its something I will never forget!
May was a mixture of happiness and sadness, we all finished university and no longer had to attend lectures or seminars and had our final Exam, we all decided to hit the local bar after the exam (well we did deserve it!) and celebrate our success over the past three years and chat about what we were all doing next! We also had our graduation ball which again was a fantastic end to the three years, and was a great night of food and drinks with a few tears here and there thrown in. It was lovely seeing everyone dressed up and having a good time and lovely to celebrate with the lecturers also.
Graduation Ball 15th May 2014 - Lumley Castle
June was a big month filled with mostly mundane things like moving back home and figuring out how all of my freshers freebies would fit into my smaller room at home alongside changing work and settling back into living at home again and being miles from anything! However June 26th is a day I will not forget for a long time.....RESULTS DAY! *bites finger nails* results were available from 10am however I was at work until 9am (i worked early shifts ;) ) and my dad was at work all day and didnt want him to miss out on me opening my results, so at 11:50 am when my dad was on his work break I opened up my results and cried my eyes out (to the point I couldn't tell my dad on the end of the phone!) at the top of the screen read "FIRST CLASS WITH HONOURS" - I've never felt so proud in all my life, all my stressing , hard work and dedication had paid off and I couldn't believe it. I owe my lecturers a lot for not only teaching me but also for their support through the three years and it wouldn't have been possible without their help. I'm still don't fully believe that I have a first class Law degree but I do!!
July was all about one thing.... GRADUATION!!! What an amazing day it was too! Celebrating all my friends success and my own and have my 3 seconds on the stage (my dad recorded it and it literally was 3 seconds!) but regardless of the time on stage it was just such a fantastic day and im so proud of all my friends for their achievements. Quite a lot of people i spoke to at graduation were all so happy and quite a lot of us were even a tad emotional - Its definitely that sort of day! The ceremony side of the day flew by and very quickly it was time to head home - Or my parents for head home ;) Quite a few of my friends were going out for drinks afterwards so i decided that i would join them and just get the train home, some of the lecturers came out later on as well and we all had a fantastic evening :)  |
| These two are my rocks: My parents, the most supportive and loving people I could ever wish for. |
August was fairly quiet, it was my 21st birthday and we went on a family holiday which was just what we all needed after the hectic few months we'd all had. Which leads us to September :) September has been all about working - since April I've been working towards saving up for my masters degree, saving every penny I can so I don't have to take out another loan to do what I want to do - September was the final push to get the last little bit I needed towards the fees and I've done it :)
Oh by the way did I mention im staying at Sunderland for my masters degree? :D
I'm SO excited to be staying at Sunderland and cant wait to get started back at uni and get into the swing of things again, seeing friends, writing about law and generally being busy! I start my induction on the 7th of October and it cant come sooner!!
This is a very long post and if you've read it all and made it this far then good on you! and have a lolly pop*, but seriously thank you for reading this i really am going to try and update more often to prevent such long posts in the future! If there is anything that you would like me to cover then let me know in the comments below and I will try my hardest to cover it! If you have any questions or are nervous about starting uni then give me a shout im always happy to help ease nerves about university and dispel those myths as much as I can!
Toodle pip!
K
PS. I spent ages trying to sort out the photos and they just wouldn't go right at all :L apologies for that!
*I have no lolly pop's sorry ;)
Tuesday 7 January 2014
Happy new year and the start of a new semester!
Hello all!
Firstly happy new year to you all, i hope you had a fantastic christmas and that you celebrated in style with loved ones :)
My last post was in october which i must apologise for, things at university took off and I have been snowed under with work ever since!
I spent most of my christmas holidays bouncing back and forth between home and my student house as i work in retail so christmas is the busiest time of year for the shop. When i wasnt working in the shop i was at home working on university assignments and making sure i didnt get behind! All in all i hardly spent any time with my family but i guess thats what happens when your in your final year and working alongside university! Although it was really busy and stressful im still greatful for the time i did have :)
I am now back at university for my last full semester and things havent stopped, definitley had to hit the ground running, ive already handed one assignment in and have another two due next week one of which is my dissertation plan and im extremely nervous and excited to start!
We have also been told we only have another 12 weeks of teaching left which is rather scary i must say! To think in 12 weeks i have "finished" university doesnt seem real! Yes i will still have assignments to write and hand in but thats all done at home - i wont need to be in university! The past 4 years (i did A level law too) will all come down to the next 5 months of hard work and perseverance which hardly seems real, it has flown by and i cant believe that in such a small space of time it will all be over! (You may have guessed im not wanting to leave!) however im planning on going out with a bang! We have our university London trip to look forward to and hopefully a graduation ball too :) so despite all the craziness i still have lots to look forward too :)
I am still looking at doing my masters degree at Sunderland so im not really leaving per se but its going to be so different and such a big change, but as they say change is good, its just the unknown that worries me :)
Well best get back to my assignments, seminar prep and lectures!
Hope you all have a lovely day :)
K x
Wednesday 30 October 2013
A busy 3 weeks!
So yet again ive been lax in my blog posts, my apologies! Its been quite busy since my last post with both uni and personal stuff so its all been a bit manic but I finally feel as of im settling into uni again and that I am ready to tackle thrid year!
Lots has happened since the last post and lots of juggling has been going on to make sure everything is done and completed on time and people are happy!
So since my last post I have attended and helped out at two open days for the university (Friday 18th and Saturday 19th) and as always they were fantastic, I genuinely love helping out for open days and speaking to potential law students helping to adddess any problems or concerns they may have and answer questions from a students point of view and give a different perspective than that of the lecturers :) for example lots of people ask about accomodation which is something the lecturers dont really know about personally so thats where I step in! :D
Its also been quite manic with university work but it's all about keeping calm and just getting on about it which is what I do! There has been lots of seminar prep to do over the past few weeks and as ive still been trying to get to grips with the topics its been taking longer than normal but I think thats because more is expected of you in third year but also that the work IS harder which it should be! But I think im getting to grips witht hat one now and feel like im understanding my topics far more than I was to begin with :)
Ive also got my first draft of my dissertation plan!!!!!!! WAHOOOO!! Im so happy to have my first draft - its rubbish and I know that but I have something down on paper so I can now spend time building on it :D my supervisor has been a great help too and im really enjoying writing it all up...so far ;)
Ive also been trying to juggle work and home life alongside uni which is proving a little difficult but having a job alongside uni is a great help at the same time, it allows me to focus on something completely different and take a break from law (as much as I love it, studying it 24/7 can prove more of a hinderance than help and just cause more stress!) and also the extra money is good too as its helping me save for my masters degree! :D
Home is obviously something that you cant miss out on, no matter how busy and stressed you are with university nothing is more of a stress reliever than going home and getting a hug from your mum and dad and a proper home cooked meal! IT CANT BE BEATEN! Ive spent a few days over the past week or two at home mainly because my mum is unwell but its been the break I needed and after everything, I think its reset my clock and now im raring to go with univeristy!
Back to uni - I was elected the student representative for my year group last week which im really happy for and I have my training for that today (in half an hour!) and then my first student and staff meeting as a student rep (I attended the meetings last year as a law society representative so I know how they run!) so im looking forward to carrying out my role through the year :D
Finally before I finish this rather long blog post thats more like a splurge of things on the page, the university trip to London I was going on has been postponed :( Im quite sad about it as I was really looking forward for the trip and spending some time with people I love to pieces! But im so glad its just being postponed though and not completely cancelled so at least now I can save some more so it can be even better than it would have been! :D ROLL ON LONDON 2014!!!! :D
But anyway enough of my ramblings! I must dash to finish getting ready for my student rep training!
Bye folks!
Karina
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