Tag Archives: student

Tips for the First Term

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Written by Malavika Murthy

It still seems hard to believe that I have already completed a term in college. With a masters degree, I seem to always be on my feet trying to finish one reading list after the other. Before I could even feel settled, I had to start writing assignments, finding a work placement and acclimating to the weather. Here are the few things that really helped in sailing through the term:

1. Having a supportive group of friends:
I was fortunate enough to make some lovely friends from the day I landed at Heathrow Airport. As time passed, we became a strong bunch from different areas of study and nationalities who are always there for each other when the going got tough for any of us. We are a group of 6 who decided to meet whenever possible and cook authentic meals from our county, this little outing once a month got me away from the monotonous routine of study and college.

2. Volunteering:
Studying heritage management here, I decided to take up volunteering at one of the heritage sites in Falmouth. The experience has been very enriching, to say the least. Volunteering at the Pendennis Castle, I have the opportunity to meet new people every week, I have gained a few insights into the history of Cornwall from the locals and been lucky enough to hear Cornish Carlos during Christmas celebration.

3. Reach out to your professors:
The teaching system in India is very different from here, there is always a wall between the students and the teachers and never an open communication. My professors have so far been so approachable and friendly, anytime I feel overwhelmed with any of my assignments I have emailed them or arranged for office hours and they have responded immediately and helped as much as possible to solve my problems.

4. Have fun:
Take time out from your studies and go out with your friends, flatmates or just by yourself. There is so much to explore around you besides the campus. Getting some fresh air has always helped me clear my mind and stay more focused on my studies. There are many societies and events that you can participate in. I attended two excursions organised by Reslife one to the Seal Sanctuary and another to the Eden Project, both have been an amazing experience.

Freshers’ Week and Term One: What NOT To Worry About

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Written by Emma MA Creativity: Innovation and Business Strategy student

The days leading up to your first week of university can be emotional. I remember feeling a bizarre mixture of excitement and anxiety. My mum grew tearful over nearly everything I did, and I was permanently torn over how much I should take with me. I’m now a postgraduate student at the University of Exeter and I’ve moved five times since moving into halls nearly four academic years ago. I found that adapting to change became easier with that first step of attending Freshers’ week. To remedy those Freshers’ fears, I’ve compiled this list of things NOT to worry about as a new undergraduate.

1. Halls: Moving out of my family home and into halls was the biggest hurdle I encountered during Freshers’ week and for a long time after. I had expected to meet my best friends for life in my new accommodation. I didn’t. I hadn’t expected to miss my family a lot. I did. If you’ve never lived away from home then this is probably the trickiest bit for you, but it is by no means something that needs worrying about. Yes, sometimes I felt a little lonely, but I truly believe that those first few months of university made me into the independent individual I am today. I stuck it out, I met life-altering personalities, I spent time getting to know the people in my block and the people in my lectures and seminars. I made a lot of amazing acquaintances, a few amazing friends, and three amazing best friends. By my second year of university I was itching to return and found over the summer break that I missed being on campus where everyone knew my name. So, don’t worry about moving or feeling alienated by your home away from home because you really will be settled down in no time without even realising it. I promise.

2. Making a good first impression: Social anxiety has been a close companion of mine for a few years now. Some days I find myself over-analysing the tiniest of things. These feelings especially acted up during Freshers’ week. I wanted my lecturers to like me, I wanted my new hall mates to like me and I wanted my course mates to like me. However, what you’ll soon come to realise is that every Fresher feels the same way. Make that effort to introduce yourself to everyone but don’t panic about being the most memorable person in the room. The friends I made in the flat below during my first few weeks of university I never kept in contact with after my second term. Not because I didn’t want to but simply because I settled with different company in the end. You might not find your more permanent social group right away, and that’s okay.

3. Getting top grades: Congratulations! You made it to the University of Exeter and you absolutely smashed your A-Levels. Now it’s time to dial it up a notch. I was immensely disheartened by my first few essay grades. How could I go from being top of the class at college to scrapping a 2:1 with a 60? University level study is hard. I adored the overwhelming intake of information in my lectures. I lived for the buzz in the room during an impassioned seminar debate. I also found myself permanently exhausted. The good news is that your first year doesn’t count towards your final grade. Spend the year finding a comfortable balance between all the new components in your life and before you know it, you’ll be floating back up to First Class territory.

4. Picking the best societies: I joined only one society in my first year: Creative Writing Society. I attended two workshops and never went again. The society was inspiring and immensely fun but I was too preoccupied with adjusting to my new environment to devote myself to it. By my second year of university I was involved in two societies: Archery (which I went into never having tried the sport before) and Xpression FM (of which I became the Arts and Literature Senior Correspondent for the News Team). In my case, I found that I was more able to give my absolute attention to societies and society socials by my second year when I’d found my footing. Here’s the secret: Freshers’ fair isn’t just for Freshers! It’s for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in university life at any point of their degree. I’ve attended the Freshers’ Fair every year I’ve spent at university and not just for all the freebies but for the electricity right at my fingertips. Go to the fair, enjoy the free snacks, pens, and pizza vouchers and don’t feel pressured to sign up to a single thing.

5. Time management: This one is a fine art that is perfected throughout one’s life. I remember feeling incredibly overwhelmed during my first year of university. Information came at me from all angles through several different channels that I wasn’t yet accustomed to using. I was being invited to society socials, to nights out clubbing with course mates, to dinners in my accommodation block, to parties in a friend’s friend’s halls, to additional lectures, to non-compulsory workshops, to poetry slams and art exhibitions, all alongside completing suffocating masses of reading in time for my seminars. I found time management easier when I purchased my first academic diary. I used to schedule everything in my day from waking up and writing emails to relaxing with a bottle of wine in the evening. I can’t remember at what point I stopped consulting it religiously, but it must have been the point in which I’d found a sense of routine. I still buy myself an academic diary every year and I still find myself writing in it every day (even when I’m searching for things to keep myself occupied with during the summer break). My top tip would be to invest in an academic diary yourself. Use it as a crutch until you no longer entirely depend on it. It’ll be the best tenner you’ve spent that year and you’ll have one less thing to worry about.

6. Freshers’ Flu: For some reason I lost the ability to hear out of my left ear entirely during my second and third week of university which really didn’t help my nervous fears surrounding my ability to keep on top of all my coursework. I went to the Student Health Centre with possibly the worst flu I’d ever experienced. I felt ran-down, lethargic, and bunged-up. The nurse recommended plenty of rest and explained to me that Freshers’ Flu wasn’t in fact a myth. I also developed a milder strain of the flu in my second year of university. Don’t panic, watch your lectures at home from your bed, eat well, and cut back on the partying (at least for a couple of nights). You’ll feel better once your body has built a resistance to your full and hectic lifestyle.

Despite my undergraduate years being some of the toughest of my life they were also the best years of my life to date. University is full of extreme emotions which make it a hell of a thrilling and unforgettable time. Just remember to keep your cool and everything will find its place. There really is nothing to worry about.

Musings of a Mature Student – Coping with the Holidays!

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Written by Anne MA English Literary Studies/Film Studies Pathway student

These deadlines come around fast, don’t they? So, with the industrial action, I find I have more time at home, so being super-organised is more important than ever. The temptation to have a break (as no seminars for a few weeks) is strong, hey, why not ditch the coursework and carry on with the research report/essay/ or whatever needs handing in next?

Well, as tempting as it is, I found a lot more useful information in this week’s reading that will improve my writing no end. After all, good writing depends on good reading…

So, there are several ways to approach writing an essay; in fact, the LSE have some great tips on their website. 

My approach is to get as much done upfront as possible: as a mature student, I can’t pull all-nighters close to deadline, which seems to be a popular choice amongst some of the younger students, aided by heart-attack amounts of red bull and coffee! (Seriously, how do you do it?) ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instead, I aim at around four hours a day steady writing, occasionally re-checking my research notes and making sure in-text citations have the correct page number. Then I just slog at it. I usually write my introduction at around 10-20% of the word count, then I write bullets points of what I hope to discover. This helps me stick to my point in the main body of the essay. It doesn’t matter about spelling and grammar at this stage – no point in correcting stuff which may well end up being deleted in the final draft! So, basically, I cobble it together then refine afterwards.  And referencing as I go. Also, remember to do that Turnitin check!

At least, in this way, I have something to submit early on, in case of a catastrophe, which happened to me at Xmas. I was bedridden four days up to deadline, so no, I didn’t write the stellar essay I hoped for, but I did have a finished essay to hand in, proof-read and formatted, checked and refined to a degree.

I have days that I’m sure you can all relate to…you know, where the sentence ‘the cat sat on the mat’ is the brain’s intellectual offering of the day and your head is full of clouds. You feel you cannot read ONE MORE thing and your eyes do that funny flicky from side-to-side thing. I either take a break and close my eyes for 10 mins, go and do something physical, or stop and set a later time in the day (that I have to stick to!) to carry on.

I used to ‘wait for inspiration’ in my undergrad days…that was great when I had 7 months to write 5000 words, (I kid you not), but I found it a shock to have to do the same in 3 weeks….so something had to change. I got far more disciplined, and when I wrote out my timetable for the Xmas break, it actually looked not only do-able but easily so.

Other things I do to stay organised:

Cooking: I plan a week’s worth of food, make out a menu, and spend a day making meals so that I don’t have to waste time wondering each day what I’m going to eat and then have to do needless shopping trips. As it’s a 40 min round trip walking to the shops where I live, this saves me A LOT of time.

Work: Yes, I have to work to support myself, so I make sure that my reading/writing schedule is lighter on those evenings, and make sure I get early starts on the days I’m not at work. It’s so easy to procrastinate at home and to get side-tracked. It’s not so bad for me as I have no dependants, but I still have to stay disciplined and not decide that hoovering the lounge is suddenly the most fascinating thing ever!

Delegate: I don’t like to ask anyone to do stuff for me, but since asking my sister (with whom I live) to take up the slack from some household/laundry/shopping chores, I find that I have more time. I have discovered that non-University family members can sometimes find it hard to believe that when you’re staring into space, you are actually working! I have also had to be firm about Do Not Disturb – it’s easy for someone to distract you and lose your train of thought. I shut my office door and have a sign on the handle. Family members can’t be expected to remember that you’re still working on the same thing two hours later!

Socialise: I make time to meet up with a friend, have a night out, and not spend the time worrying or feeling guilty, because I have scheduled it into my calendar. A good night out and having some fun does wonders for creativity!

It’s about pacing yourself, and realising that when you’re shattered/exhausted, you need to stop. Look after yourself, and your health. Be nice to yourself – you’ve come this far, you’re awesome! Sometimes you just need to remind yourself of just that. Get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day, and aren’t we lucky to see it?

Musings of a mature student – Eating well and staying healthy

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Written by Anne MA English Literary Studies/Film Studies Pathway

I have to budget (like all of us do!) as a student, so I have been looking at ways to eat well and save pounds….and lose pounds too! My food bill is around £25-£30 per week, although a lot of that is on things that take a long time to use up, like oil, salt, mayo… store cupboard essentials. Although there are many great (and heavily discounted) eateries around campus, and it’s great to eat out with friends, there is something satisfying about cooking and having friends round to dinner. Even better if you club together to buy the ingredients or have different hosts even once a week.

The important thing is to strike a balance – it would be great to have dedicated ‘eat out together’ nights and some eat-in dinner parties too and think what you could do with the money you save!

Maths is not my strong point, but I’ll give it a go:

Scenario. You eat lunch every day on campus, evenings you eat out or grab a take-away. In this sample I’m using as an average just two meals per day and two to three drinks.

Lunch: Burger and fries, £5.75. Drink, £2.50.

Dinner: On campus £6.95 Meal Deal/ Takeaway Pizza (small), £13.99. Drink, £2.

Over 7 days = £106.40/£169.68

Daily expenditure (not including breakfast or snacks) = £15.20/£24.24

My food bill is £30 eating-in every day and taking my own lunches to college. If I add on a night out and a few coffees, then I can guess at another £15 on top, so that rounds up to £45 per week. Let’s round that to £6 per day if I’m feeling lavish, although realistically it’s a lot less than that.

It easy to see, then, that by cooking even three days out of seven could potentially save you a lot of money! There are too many variables for accurate calculations, but it’s safe to say at least £9 to £18 could be saved per day on not eating out. That could be a few extra hundred quid per semester! Be smart, eat smart!

As a one-time chef, I have always had an interest in food; not only from a restaurant-oriented perspective on food combinations, presentation and flavour, but also nutrition and its effects I the body. I cook all of my meals from scratch, and although it can be a bit time consuming, I save A LOT of money in the meantime.

So instead of grabbing a quick bite from a café or shop, I make a batch of food that I can take with me to Uni, like a frittata (sort of  a cold omelette) loaded with eggs, spinach, onions and feta cheese…healthy and delicious! Spinach is full of vitamins too, which is great for your body and brain! The good news is you only need one large frying pan, a decent knife and a chopping board, no fancy kitchen stuff. (Although fancy kitchen stuff is col…I’m a kitchen-gadget nerd). 😊

So, I’m heading for my mid-fifties, and my body isn’t what it used to be! I have always been fairly active – I love DIY, building projects at home and in the garden, I grow my own food, and I dance Argentine tango.

When I began my serious foray into education starting my degree late in life in 2015, my lifestyle also changed drastically. Gone were the long days of being active; instead I was (and am) spending a lot more time sitting down studying, or spending hours watching films for my course. So, the input/output ratio of food/energy expenditure was just not balancing up any more. Added to that was a broken arm followed by a knee operation and surgery, compounding the inactivity and inability to move very much at all.

I found that my energy levels were spiking and crashing all over the place. I felt tired even after 8 hours of sleep. I have suffered insomnia for a long time, and I was resigned to a good night’s sleep being a thing of the past. I was packing on the pounds, making my system feel sluggish and my clothes were not fitting well any more. I looked at my daily food intake and kept a diary – a few lattés with added sugar, an energy bar, and sandwich or fries for lunch and maybe pasta for dinner, followed by toast later on in the evening or some dark chocolate was a normal day, and although it looked healthy, there was a lot of sugar in there, even though I didn’t realise it! And I often felt hungry….

So, even though I cook a lot and cook well, I decided to add more ‘on the go’ foods to my list to avoid grabbing a carb-heavy lunch, which can make you feel sleepy!  Apart from frittata, another cool way to bring a packed lunch to Uni is in lettuce wraps: you can load a sweet, crunchy lettuce leaf (cos, or romaine are best) with chicken mayo, tuna, roasted peppers, flavoured tofu,  steak and cheese – think wrap but with lettuce for the ‘holder’. The best thing about learning to cook a few simple things for lunches is that it’s much, much cheaper and also really good for you…my lunches are very filling and cost around a pound each!

Now, any kind of regime is difficult to stick to without good planning; if you have a family to fit in around your meal choices it’s ever harder. But by spending just a few hours in a day to make lunches or dinners for the next few days actually saves a lot of time!

So down to the food itself! By eating good quality protein, vegan or not, you actually feel fuller longer, and by adding ‘rainbow’ veg you are getting all the nutrition you need. Finish off your salads with some good virgin olive oil or throw on some seeds and you’re good to go! Here’s one of my favourites, which is actually nice cold too – you have the leftovers for lunch the next day. Jazz it up by throwing in some fresh watercress leaves and fresh cherry tomatoes for a great salad!

I am going to start with a ‘middle of the road’ recipe, one that is Asian food inspired, and follows my particular keto diet, although it’s healthy for everyone. Here is one of my favorites, which you can cook in under 30 mins, after a bit of prep. (with adaptations for various diets). It’s a good recipe to have for lunch or dinner, especially if the other meal of the day is a bit heavier on fried foods or eating out. Why not get your friends round for dinner, everyone can help with the prep…not to mention the washing up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spicy Beef Asian Style (with veggie and Ramen Variations). (serves 2) prep time (overnight plus 30mins cooking) serves 2. Cost: approx. £7 (£5.67 for main ingredients, allowing £1.33 for spices, herbs and oils).

1 x 12oz sirloin or other good grass-fed beef steak

1 x Bunch spring onions chopped

1 x head pak choi

I x small carrot sliced into in ribbons

1x head of broccoli cut into small florettes

1x green pepper, de-seeded and sliced

1 x courgette cut into thin strips

1tbsp soy sauce

¼ tsp chili flakes

2 x cloves garlic

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

Handful fresh coriander

2tsp toasted sesame seeds

1 x tbsp sesame oil plus extra if needed

 

Method

Combine oil, salt, crushed garlic, coconut aminos, chilli & ginger in a bowl.

Slice steak into thin ribbons, about ¼ inch thick and thoroughly coat in oil mixture.

Cover and leave to marinade in the fridge overnight.

Cooking:

Pre-heat a large non-stick wok and add beef using tongs, being careful to shake off as much liquid from the marinade as possible. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until all pink colour has just turned brown. If sticking, add a little more sesame oil. Remove and set aside.

Add broccoli, peppers and carrots to pan, cook for 2 minutes, tossing to keep them cooking evenly. Add sliced pak choi and spring onions, then re-add beef and rest of marinade. Add beef broth, lower heat on pan. Cook until all heated through and piping hot.

Ladle into two bowls, top with sesame seeds and coriander.

Enjoy!

Variations:

Less expensive: Use low sodium soy sauce instead of liquid coconut aminos, and switch to cheaper cuts of pork or chicken.

Ramen: Add a halved boiled egg and spiralise the courgette for low carb ramen, or for normal ramen add cooked noodles.

Vegetarian: add marinated seitan or tofu instead of meat.

Spice it up!  Splash on some hot chilli sauce or add bird’s eye chilies when frying meat/tofu.

Freshen it up! Toss in a large handful of bean sprouts to the veggies when cooking and add a big bunch of watercress on the side and squeeze over a generous slice of fresh lime.