Once upon a time (2014), I started a thing to get onto a thing, so that I could be a thing.
29 exams, 14 pieces of coursework, 620 hours of placement, some volunteering, four part-time jobs, a dramatic incident and a dissertation later, it was (oh-so-suddenly)….
THE. END.
That is a very brief version of the events of the past five years, which also included taking a Biology A level in a year (whilst working full time) as my evidence of study following a long hiatus from education, feeling lost, learning to ask for help and the production of a piece of work that I honestly thought was beyond me.
And that’s what the last few weeks have been about: getting my research project finished. It’s been something of a rollercoaster for a number of reasons. Our first couple of draft chapters were due at the end of December; around the time that (those of you who have read previous posts may recall) I managed to fall off a horse. So that scuppered my plan to get some really good work in. When returning to the project after I’d finished my placement in March I had to do the data analysis and draft the last chapters, which involved lots of editing, as well as producing new information.
I then got some mightily disappointing exam results, which knocked me a little bit. I definitely found it challenging to pick myself up so that I could put enough effort into the writing of my project. Apparently, feeling like I’m doing badly massively demotivates me. That same week, I got a job rejection and feedback saying that my whole draft needed a lot of restructuring.
Luckily for me, my project supervisor (who was also my clinical tutor in my second year) had a knack for making everything seem a little less overwhelming, whilst totally validating the frustration I was feeling. She reassured me that getting lower grades than usual was understandable, considering the circumstances of the year, and gave me really specific things to work on for my project draft. And so, I got my head down and grafted. I find re-reading what I’ve written particularly awful, but I kind of got into it, and I felt like I had actually started to understand how to put together a long piece of work (I chose to opt out of a dissertation in my first degree, so this was my first experience of writing at length in this way). I worked on telling the story of the research, and keeping my science-writing-brain in check. A job interview also came through from my second application.
Before I knew it, I was ready to submit. It was pretty overwhelming; four years’ worth of work finished with one click. I had a cup of tea and went straight for a nap.
Being a lovely department, we – of course- got a sending off on our hand-in date, 10th May 2019. So here is a picture of some of us looking very pleased with ourselves.
Photo credit: Fiona Kyle
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