This May will be the second time that I have finished year one of university. Confused? Last year, I went to Staffordshire university and I hated it. Don’t get me wrong, I met some awesome people and I’m still friends with some of them now, but I just had to leave. The course was awful. So I went to Birmingham City University and started year one all over again (doing a different course). 

At the time of writing this, it’s the end of February which means I’ve got an assessment in for the 1st March and two other assessment in for a couple of weeks. I think it’s safe to say that I’m stressed out to the max.

But how do I handle this stress and this workload? Well…

1) I do some of the work the day I get it. And by some of the work, I mean I do the reading. Each week, we are given reading to do for every module which accumulates to about 100 pages overall. So I do that straight away.

2) After I’ve done the reading, I finish for the day. Reading 100 pages off a computer screen tires me out.

3) A massive tip for you: don’t do the work all in one go. You will get bored and you won’t have any motivation. Do a little bit of the work each day so that by the end of the week, those little bits you have done and built up and you’ve finished it.

4) Make time for you. You don’t want to be doing uni work all day every day. You will start to resent your course and everything about it; you don’t want that to happen. So make sure you make time for yourself, for friends, and for family. (And also for your other commitments such as your own blog)

5) Once you’ve finished and handed in an assessment or done an exam, treat yourself. It doesn’t have to be something massive, but every time I finish an assessment, I buy myself a book. It gives me that extra motivation to finish because I know I’ll be able to buy myself something I’ve wanted for ages.

For those of you who are in the same boat as me at the moment: try not to stress. Take a deep breath and plan your work according to what suits you.

I have 3 months now of pure assessments and sometimes I feel like I want to break down crying because it’s too much, but then I have to tell myself that I just need to get through those 3 months and I have til September to concentrate on things I want to do that I couldn’t whilst studying.

Good luck with your assessments and exams.

Now go and kick some ass!