Third Year Anxieties

During my undergraduate degree, the run up to Christmas I was feeling the pressure to do well in my final year whilst balancing the complexities of three modules and my dissertation.

In the midst of balancing all these commitments I decided I should reach out to some available services the university provides and I found them all really helpful and was able to get through the year and achieve a grade I was proud of!

Wellbeing Services

I contacted the university’s student support services and made an appointment to speak to someone about how I was feeling, they validated how I was feeling and made me feel listened to. This appointment was used as evidence to support an extension request for one of my modules I was struggling with and allowed me to feel less overwhelmed with everything.

By having the appointment I was able to reflect on how I was feeling and make a positive step to lighten all the commitments I was juggling at the time by admitting I needed to make an extension request, something I had not needed whilst at uni before.

Using coursemates for support

I found great comfort in using friends for support who were on the same course as me as they knew what it was like to balance the same modules as me and we had all started our dissertations at the same time!

By speaking to them about how I was feeling I was able to see that I was not alone in the way I was feeling and others were also feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

By opening up to each other we were able to schedule more library days and check in on each other but also allow for self care days too and going for meals after library days in order to reward ourselves with working so hard!

Contacting personal tutors

By using my personal tutor for support I was able to seek support and guidance about how I was feeling after a disappointing module grade and put into perspective how one module, in the overall picture, was not going to ruin my whole overall degree grade.

This guidance was helpful to allow me to not spiral out and get even more overwhelmed with my workload.