Friday, May 12, 2006

Essay-stressay-messay

I promise, after June 5th, to write more cheerful posts, and more often.

I am scared that I'm spending all this time on an essay which is going to be no good.

I'm scared that I won't be able to put a good argument together.

I'm scared that my lecturer will think I'm stupid.

I'm scared of failing my MA.

I don't now how bad failing would be. I wouldn't be able to do a lot of jobs which I might like to do.

I probably wouldn't be able to be in charge of the world.

But I would get my life back.

After I stopped working for SPEAK it took probably a year to really feel that my life was my own again. I loved having my life back.

There's a really stupid fly which can't find its way out of the window. I both pity and hate it for being so stupid and for annoying me.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My plants are great at dealing with annoying flies! Now if only they were big enough for dealing with annoying people...maybe its a job for science!

Maybe you need a venus fly trap!

Anonymous said...

you'll do fine at your essay, because your not stupid. can you not get your lecturer to have a look at it and see what she/he thinks of it so far and where your going with it?

Ruth said...

You won't fail your MA.

Do you know what? If I were a student again, I think I'd do things differently to the first time round (which was the late 80s so things will have changed a lot now anyway). This may be because I spent the best part of a decade teaching adults (I worked in management training with Civil Service (yawn), BBC, Science Museum). I would put more onus on my tutors to ensure that I did well rather then taking total responsibility for doing well myself. I can see flaws in that approach, but that's how I'd be. I'd not totally rely on tutors, of course, but I'd be more demanding of them. AND, I wouldn't necessarily think that an essay with a bad mark was a bad essay. I might question whether the marker had got it wrong and not me! And if it was a bad essay, and they were right and I was wrong, I'd demand that they took some responsibility for that. I sound really arrogant here, don't I. BUT, I am afraid that I suspect that universities place slightly too much emphasis on self-driven progress and not enough on support and teaching.....

I'll stop there. I could make one more point on theories of adult learning and the degree to which these are taken into account within universities, but I will not. I know I have sounded a little bombastic. I shall see whether any other commenters shoot me down in flames for this.... (hope no tutors are reading...)!

Shall I "login and publish"...? Oh what the heck....!

Sarah said...

I probably do need a venus fly trap. But it would die, like all my other plants. Exept Arthur, the monstrous cheeseplant which I've have for about 5 years now.

I've sent a very rough draft to my lecturer, which I hope he will jst confirm. But I'm just not sure I'm going to make it in time - there's so much to write and so little time to write it in.

I think you are partly right, Ruth. Last term I wrote an essay that got slated and, while I have learnt from the experience, pretty much everyone in the class has done badly and it has dented our confidence somewhat. It makes me wonder how much responsibility the lecturer should take for it, if the whole class does badly.

Fat Roland said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fat Roland said...

(Really must try and write words in the right order. Here is a re-post of a post I deleted because it read somethingn liek thisss...)

>I am scared that I'm spending all this time on an essay which is going to be no good.

Have confidence, dear, you are much much better than "no good".

>I'm scared that I won't be able to put a good argument together.

I disagree. GEDDIT?!?!?!

>I'm scared that my lecturer will think I'm stupid.

That's my job, arf!

>I'm scared of failing my MA.

I don't think you'll fail although I've not read your work and probably don't want to because it's a lot of reading and I'm easily distracted and ooh look a bird.

>I don't now how bad failing would be

It's fine. Trust me.

>I probably wouldn't be able to be in charge of the world.

I hear the perks aren't that great.

>There's a really stupid fly which can't find its way out of the window.

Set fire to the house. Gets rid of flies.

Sarah said...

The problem is that my last essay got 50%, which is borderline - it's the lowest mark you can get for an MA. After that you get shunted onto a PGdip, which would be rubbish.

Today I have done some good stuff. I should do osme more good stuff but I prefer playing solitaire.

I say 'stupid' but really it isn't about being stupid - it's about being able to think at MA level. I just about can, but not all the time and not for extended periods of time.

Yargh.

Sarah said...

I don't think I'm going to get to the end. I'm considering getting Postgraduate Certificate for what I've done this year and that being it. I've realised that I don't actually enjoy what I'm doing, so perhaps I don't want to do a policy job, which would just mean more of the same.