Graduation!

Alright, it's been well over a month since I graduated (almost two months, actually), and I never posted anything! Ridiculous, considering this whole blog had been leading up to that moment. So here it is, my very belated blog about my graduation day.

In short, it was a truly fantastic day, and I spent it with almost all of my favourite people. I'd heard the month before that I'd won two prizes (the British Psychological Society Undergraduate Award, for having the highest overall degree grade on graduation, and the Applied Psychology Prize, for having the highest grade in my placement year), so the afternoon started by going to the reception to pick up the awards. What I didn't realise was that I'd won a third prize too, the Social Sciences Rotary Prize, for 'distinguished performance in the stage 3 exams'! It was a lovely surprise, and my supervisor was pretty pleased he'd managed to keep that one a surprise.

After the reception, we all headed down to the cathedral to pick up the ridiculous robes and hat in preparation for the ceremony.

 Of course, it was the windiest day ever, so keeping the hat on, the robes steady and the dress in the right place was a little challenging. The ceremony itself was pretty long, and there was a lot of queuing, however picking up the certificate felt good! It was a great way of celebrating four years of hard work, and I'm so pleased that I finally achieved it.

So, what now? Well, in two weeks I'm due to begin my master's degree! Earlier this week, I managed to pay £9,550 of tuition fees - without a loan, but with the help of some very generous people, my wages for the past year and a half and the rest of my savings account. It was pretty daunting, but having looked at some of the lectures I think I can say I made the right choice. Neurons, neurons and more neurons! I'm very much looking forward to it, and next week I'm meeting a potential supervisor for the project element of the course. It's been hard work, and no doubt there will be more hard work to come, but everything is finally coming together! As for this blog, well, I don't know whether I'll carry on. I probably will, but maybe not as regularly as I was posting during my final year - there looks like a lot more work on the MSc course, so who knows if I'll have time! Whatever happens, it's been fun! No doubt I'll look back on all this writing and reminisce about the whole of my undergraduate degree experience. I'm now a 'Bachelor of Science' - this time next year I'll have upgraded to 'Master'. That's a pretty cool thought!

Results

Almost a month since my last post - and what a month it's been! At the end of May, I finished my final undergraduate degree exams and officially entered my summer break (which for me, means more work to be honest - I have tuition fees to raise!). A couple of weeks after finishing my exams, I left the UK for a week to go visit a friend in Switzerland and reward myself for finishing the degree. While I was there, I got my results.

For those of you who don't know me so well, you should realise that I am a bit of a weirdo. Actually, let's face it, even people who don't know me so well already know that. What you should know is that I hate receiving exam results. I don't get anxious for exams, but I am a nervous wreck when it comes to finding out how I've done. I've always said that you can give me any number of exams and I'll sit them with no problem, just don't make me look at the outcome. Luckily, being on holiday definitely reduced the anxiety, largely as I didn't have internet access for most of the day. But, I needn't have worried anyway. I finished my degree with straight firsts in all of my modules, with 85% in both my dissertation and neuroscience modules. Phew!

Of course, I am very happy with having a first class degree overall, but what matters more to me is my overall degree percentage. I wouldn't have been content with a first class at only 70%, so I set myself a goal of 80% overall. It was achievable, providing I had excellent grades overall (and I was a little thrown by my clinical psychology modules to be honest). So, imagine my joy when I calculated my final grade at 81.45%! It's a completely arbitrary figure really, but I'm incredibly pleased nonetheless.

I'd be happy to leave my degree results there, but today I received more news. Along with my great grades, it seems I've also won a few prizes! I received the prize for the best placement year grades - something I was hoping for, but wasn't sure I'd get - and (even better) the British Psychological Society Undergraduate Award for the highest overall degree grade on graduation. If I was pleased with my results, I'm ecstatic now! The BPS award in particular is my second prize from the organisation, having previously been awarded the A-Level prize for my psychology grade at college. Both are huge achievements, and I feel very proud of my hard work over the years.

So, the last thing remaining is my graduation in two weeks. I'm looking forward to wearing the ridiculous outfit and finally picking up my certificate - it's been a long time coming, and it's a great way to celebrate the past four years. Let's just hope I don't fall over in the cathedral!

The End

On Wednesday at 11:30, I finished my degree. It was a pretty surreal moment during the exam. I finished the second essay question (the final one I would ever write at Kent) and it hit me that I was actually done. I'd been waiting for that moment for a very long time, and it was weird thinking that it was actually there at last. For the past couple of days, I've been feeling a bit lost - well, you spend four years of your life working towards something, what are you supposed to do when you reach the end? But today at least I feel a bit more normal, and I haven't woken up with the thought of "what am I meant to revise today?". Now I just have a mere three and a half months to wait for my Master's to start. I say 'wait', what I actually mean is 'spend three and a half months raising £5,500 so I can actually pay for my Master's and travel to London'. Hopefully I'll be able to do this quickly. In any case, as long as I have my tuition fees (just under £900 to go!) and enough for my first three-month season ticket (£1,364, assuming the prices don't go up just yet), at least I will be able to start - then I'll worry about the other money when I have to. As always, if you feel you'd like to help my cause, please visit my fundraising page. As you can see, I've made good progress so far!

Anyway, back to my BSc. I won't pretend that I've loved every second of my degree (far from it!), but I can definitely say that I did enjoy it overall. My first year wasn't great. While many students adore fresher's week and like the fact that first year grades don't count, I can't say I have this mindset. Apart from statistics, the first year was a repeat of my A-Levels, and so I didn't learn a huge amount. I also had a complete nightmare with my first year housemates (parties until 3/4am most weekdays, an irrational fear of housework, chicken bones on the table and week-old lasagne on the top of the fridge. Nice.), and the original group of friends I'd made in the first term dropped me when I stopped giving handouts of my notes (motivated by the fact that they wouldn't show up to lectures if I gave them notes) and told them I couldn't afford rent for a house with a £2,000 deposit. I have to say that I came close to quitting quite a few times in my first year! On the flip side, I did make some great friends in the second term, and found a house for my second year. I also had fantastic grades (well, what do you expect with multiple choice exams?), and won a prize for my exam results, so my first year wasn't terrible.

My second year was my favourite year. I felt like I did learn things, and hugely enjoyed biological and cognitive psychology. It was the most intensive year of my degree - essay after essay, four statistics exams and six written exams - but I do thrive on a heavy workload. I was also living away from the idiots of first year, and we had a hell of a lot of fun in the house. Alright, some crazy moments were perhaps mentally scarring (those who were there know why), but it was fun overall! Second year was also the year in which I had my first taste of research. I helped on a project investigating prosopagnosia (face-blindness) being run by my current supervisor, which made it easy to start work on my placement year.

The summer following my second year was spent working. I kind of started my placement early, and to be honest, I never really stopped this work! Third year was the year in which I learned the most - funny, considering this was the year that I didn't have a single lecture. I started working on a project investigating disorders of consciousness. I don't think I will ever forget the moment I first worked with a patient. We went to the hospital and I thought we were just going to meet the patient - imagine my surprise when my supervisors said to start setting up the EEG. I think I'd only had one practice, running an EEG on a healthy person is nothing like setting up an EEG on a (quite ill) patient. Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end! After a while though, this becomes second nature, and I gained so many skills from the year as a whole. As well as the disorders of consciousness study, I also helped on a study investigating hemispatial neglect (a condition in which patients don't attend to stimuli on the opposite side of their brain lesion - usually the left), started working towards my current migraine study, and even published my first peer-reviewed article!

I'm very happy I decided to do a placement. I often had my doubts, and it was incredibly hard when everyone I knew finished their exams and graduated. You can't help but feel that you're being left behind. But, the experience I gained was invaluable, and some moments I experienced when working with patients were incredible. Plus, I think I would have gained a lot less from my degree if I'd have skipped the placement.

So, my final year. Again, this wasn't my favourite year of my degree. It seemed to crawl by so slowly. I didn't really know anyone in the lectures, two out of my four optional modules were so badly organised that I still don't really know what they were trying to achieve, a third optional module I took purely because it was the only one with a vaguely cognitive element, and the final one could have been fantastic, had I not learned everything on my placement year (it was convened by my supervisor, so I should have known)! However, my grades this year have been brilliant - something I can only attribute to the placement - and I had the chance to cite myself in one of my essays (it turns out, quite a lot of other students did this as well - fame at last!). I am glad that I had the chance to coordinate the migraine study during my final year, as it was really the only thing I had to do. So, not a great year overall, but I did enjoy working on my final year project and extended neuroscience essay. Hopefully, I'll get good grades in my exams, and I should end up with a first overall.

While my degree has had its ups and downs, I think that deciding to go to university was the best decision I have ever made. If you'd have said to me five or six years ago that I'd be here now, having seen patients recover from various neurological problems, published an article and ended up with such high grades, I'd have told you that you were insane. It's funny how these things turn out!

What to do now then? In a few weeks I'll be off on holiday. Other than that, I have a bit more research work to do. Then, I'll be starting my MSc. I'll be interested to see how the MSc turns out - it should be more intensive than my BSc, and much more in line with my research interests. Plus, I've moved up to one of the UK's best unis, so we'll see whether this gives me even more work to do. Whatever happens, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, and I can look back at my BSc as the start of it all. I just can't believe it's over!

Final Fortnight

Despite my resolve to continue updating my blog weekly, things seem to have gotten away from me a little, as it's almost a month since I last posted! To be honest, there's not a huge amount to report since my last update - it's been constant revision for around a month now. As I mentioned in my last post, I hate revising. Really. It's so boring, and there's not much to it beyond trying to memorise names and dates by heart, condensing endless notes so that single words are triggers for whole paragraphs, and generally twisting all the things you know to make them fit the questions you're asked. As mind-numbingly boring as it sounds (and is), it does seem to pay off in the end. Well, I hope I still think this on results day.

This week, I had my first two exams. I think they went well enough, but you never really know until you get the results. In any case, I'm certain to get a first class degree (well, unless I get zeros in all my assignments - unlikely, but I don't want to tempt fate!), so the rest of the marks are purely for my own pride. This exam period has been very different from those of the last six/seven years (or however long it's been since I started 'formal' education again after my years of home education), but it's been nice not worrying as much.

So, I'm halfway through this year's exams. Last week, I handed in my dissertation too - that was a good moment! Thankfully, it didn't end up 170 pages long (a few words with my supervisor and the module convenor led me to drop some irrelevant tables and figures), but I think 65+ pages was more than enough. Next week, I have my second clinical psychology exam, and the following week I have my last exam. It's a weird feeling being so close to the end, and I'm sure I'll feel a bit shell-shocked on the 28th.

Aside from my exams, revision and coursework, I've been reconnecting with what got me interested in psychology and neuroscience in the first place. I had the chance to work with some neglect patients last week - I still find it crazy that a couple of years ago I was fascinated reading about hemispatial neglect, and now I've not only worked with patients, but also published an article about the condition (incidentally, I received a text from my supervisor today, telling me that my fellow students have been citing my article in their essays! And there I was, thinking it would only be me citing the article). Working with the patients reminded me how I got into psychology: reading the books of Oliver Sacks. This prompted me to start spending my birthday money (oh yeah, I'm 22 now. I'm not sure I like this age. I might regress to 21 and just stay there forever...), and I've bought two 'popular' neuroscience books.

One of the books I'm still waiting to be delivered from the US, but it looks fascinating. It's about cases of patients who have suffered trauma to the brain in some way, shape or form, and it has the most fantastic title I've read in ages: The Case of the Dueling Neurosurgeons. I came across the book after reading an article about Phineas Gage (considered to be one of the most famous patients in neuroscience, a railway worker who survived a metal pole through the frontal lobes), and I'm really looking forward to reading it when my exams are done!

The second book I bought, I'm already completely hooked on. It's called 'Phantoms in the Brain' by a famous neurologist called V. S. Ramachandran. Ramachandran's work has largely focused on phantom limb syndrome (a condition arising following amputation of a limb, where patients feel as if their limb is still there), and in the book he talks about how cases such as these (and other cases of patients with unusual symptoms following brain injury) can influence how we consider the functioning of the brain. I'm only four chapters in so far (although I only started reading it today), but I already love the book. Ramachandran has a great writing style, and always considers the meaning of the condition for both those (like me) who want to find out how the brain works, and the personal meaning for the patients. In particular, I like how Ramachandran speaks about the use of case studies in neuroscience. There's a tendency for many scientists (and indeed, members of the public) to want big studies, with many patients and lots of data. The aim of this is to find evidence for big, unified theories of the brain. As a result, small case studies of unusual disorders are largely considered as little more than curiosities. However, Ramachandran argues that neuroscience is still largely in its infancy, and in fact we can learn more from one or two unusual patients that we can from hundreds of studies on control participants. I think a good balance should be struck between the two forms of data - and this is something I would be very keen to base myself on if (when) I become a researcher myself. Above all else, case studies serve an important purpose in my opinion: reminding us that we're studying patients, not disorders, people not just brains.

In line with this last point, I feel the need to point out that this week is Headway's Action for Brain Injury week. I feel that many other health campaigns get lots of attention (think of the no make-up selfies for cancer awareness), however brain injury is largely ignored. Indeed, often the first people learn of the consequences of brain injury is when they or a relative suffer damage. As I've stated many times, we are in serious need of finding new ways to support people with brain injury. We also need to consider that patients with unusual cognitive conditions aren't just curiosities - Phineas Gage isn't just a case in a book, he was also a person. I know my blog is really for a select audience, however if you read this then I'd urge you to share the following link to Headway. While I want to dedicate my whole career to helping people with brain injuries, this isn't the only way people can help. Raising awareness of brain injury is likely to help, even just a little. Hopefully, with growing awareness, we can move closer to finding more about the brain and to do more for those affected by an injury.

Paris, Revision, and Milestones

I've been back from Paris for a whole week now - I'm definitely feeling the whole 'holiday blues' thing! I'm pleased I managed to get away for a little while. I saw some amazing places (Versailles - I'm sure the gold could pay for 1,000 master's degrees!), had complete sensory overload and managed to practice my French! It was a heck of a lot of fun, and one day I will have to go back.

Back to reality, the revision has started. I hate revision. I really hate it. I'm a good student, but I defy anyone to sit in a room for over a month, staring at textbooks, notes and highlighters, and say it's fun. Still, in 35 days I'll be done with my degree! I still have a bit more to write on my neuroscience extended essay (I keep changing my mind about the structure - perfectionism gets you great marks but it's a complete pain sometimes... Well, most of the time...), and I'm waiting to hear back from my supervisor about my dissertation draft (gulp!), but I'm well on schedule to get everything done in advance. I can safely say that I'll have earned my summer break this year. Sure, I'll be working, but it won't be coursework and textbooks!

I'm slightly worried about my reaction when my degree will be over. In second year, I remember the weird feeling once my exams were over - quite a few people laughed at how lost I looked. I honestly don't know what I'll feel once everything's done with. Probably shock for a while, then relief. Once my exams are over, it's only a short wait until I get the results. I get far more nervous over results than exams, but this year I'll be off on holiday, so maybe that will help. Time will tell I suppose!

Tomorrow marks five months until I start my MSc! This is incredibly exciting, and I'm happier and happier the closer I'm getting. I'm currently revising some topics which are completely uninteresting, so you can't imagine what it'll be like when I'm reading about brains and neurons again (yeah, I realise how nerdy this sounds)! I still have some more money to raise, and I suspect a lot of my summer will be dedicated to raising the last of the funds. Again, I'll take the opportunity to remind you of my fundraiser - please share and/or donate, as everything will help enormously! I'm getting closer and closer to raising all of the cash (I have well over two thirds of the fee now!), and I can tell you now that a huge weight will be lifted once I know for sure I can pay for everything. First though, I have to get through my degree, graduate and enjoy my summer break. This is definitely the easy part!

Firsts and Lasts

It's week 24. My last week of my last term at the University of Kent. Tomorrow, I have my last lecture here, and then it's just revision before the end in May. It's kind of scary thought, realising that next month I'll be done with my degree. It's quite a good feeling too, though. It means my hard work will finally be paid off (well, assuming we don't get a marking boycott - see my last post!), and I'll be able to move on to bigger and better things.

Before I get to finish everything though, I still have revision to do. I hate revising. I know, I'm a good student and I spend most of the revision period in front of books and notes, so you'd have thought it was something I didn't mind. Quite the opposite. Revision is boring. Making notes is boring. Especially when it's on topics you don't care about (I'm looking at you, Applying Psychology). Still, it is worth it. My grades this year are the best they've ever been across my degree, and this is something I hope to continue with the final pieces of work. I did figure out that I only need 40-something per cent in my exams this year to end up with a first in my degree, but now my grades are nothing more than a matter of pride. It's reassuring that I should still end up with a great degree, but I want to get the highest grades I possibly can - which means locking myself in my room for a month to pore over books and notes. Ah well, it's just over six weeks until  the end, so I'm sure I will cope.

Aside from revision, I have two pieces of work left to complete: my dissertation (currently 69 pages long and with a results section and half a discussion still to write - god help my printer!), and a neuroscience extended essay. The dissertation is, frankly, a pain, as my study hasn't quite gone to plan. Nothing that can't be fixed, it just means I'm using statistics I've never seen before, or resorting to descriptive results (which are very wordy, and difficult with a 6,000 word limit!). The neuroscience essay on the other hand is a piece of cake! It's about hemispatial neglect, a topic on which I have already published a peer-reviewed journal article. How many students write the coursework after they publish the papers? It's great, and it means I'm able to cite my own work (purely out of pride). While this work isn't due in until May, I think I'll be done in a week or two (with time for preening and tidying).

So, apart from the relatively boring coursework/lectures/revision, what else has been going on? I've been tutoring again, and I think I'm helping my student come round to liking biological and cognitive psychology. It's been fun overall, and I'm really happy I could help someone with their studies!

I have lots of things to look forward to as well. This weekend, I'm having a break from everything by taking myself off to Paris! I'm stupidly excited about this, and I'm looking forward to seeing and doing new things. No doubt there will be endless pictures. After my exams finish I'm going to Geneva in June. Again, something I'm stupidly excited about. In July, I'll be graduating, and in September I'll be starting my MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at one of the most prestigious universities in the UK (and Europe. Maybe the world?). No wonder I'm so happy!

Marking Boycotts

Dear lecturers and members of the University and College Union,

Recently, there has been a lot of news surrounding the proposed marking boycott due to take place from the 28th of April should a deal over pay not be reached by that point. While I have the utmost sympathy for your position (there is of course nothing right over one group of individuals in an institution receiving a pay rise while other workers receive nothing), I implore you all to avoid a marking boycott for the sake of the people who make universities possible: the students.

I am currently in my fourth year of university, and now less than eight weeks away from finishing. In just over three months, I will finally receive my degree at my graduation ceremony. I have worked endlessly, striving to constantly improve and learn and work towards a career that will (hopefully) help many others in the future. When I started college, I never wanted to go to university. Now I'm here, I can honestly say it's been the best decision I have ever made. I've loved most of my time at uni, but I'm not going to lie: it's been tough.

I'm a good student. I always work to get the highest grades I possibly can, and often I'm my own worst enemy. The standards I set myself often lead to a lot of self-criticism, but it's just a way of getting better and better. The stress and effort are worth it, as I know that soon I'll be graduating and on my way to the next part of my career.

The emotional strain I was under for months while applying for postgraduate places was immense. Similarly, the joy I felt when I finally got the news I wanted was amazing. I'm thrilled that I'm on track to graduating with a first class degree, and that I will soon be starting an MSc at one of the world's best universities.

This is all very good news, and I should be celebrating. However, the anxiety I'm feeling around the marking boycott is growing. I cannot cope with the thought that all of this hard work will be for nothing should you embark on the marking boycott. I am aspiring to become a lecturer myself. I want to produce original research, and help students like me reach their potential too. Why, then, should all of this be threatened over a pay dispute?

If you choose to begin the marking boycott, you would directly affect my grades. My dissertation may go unmarked. My exams may go unmarked. Without these marks, I won't be able to graduate. If I don't get my degree, I can't go to UCL. All of my hard work over four years would be worthless. Because of your arguments.

Why would a marking boycott work? You're not punishing chancellors. You're not punishing the people who set your pay. You're punishing those you should be encouraging. While most students are very supportive of fair pay, you won't receive support from those who are directly affected by the marking boycott. In 2006 when you took similar action, the deal you were offered increased by 0.5%. Is destroying our futures worth this?

I cannot tell you how scared I am that this nightmare scenario will happen. It doesn't seem fair to me that my future is jeopardised. My graduation, the thing I have been looking forwards to for months, might not happen. That is unthinkable with the work I have put into my future. Please, don't let this happen.

Updates, Updates!

I'm getting out of practice, updating this blog!

By and large, the last couple of weeks have been pretty ordinary to be honest. Lectures, coursework, and testing participants. I'm almost done with one of the studies I'm running now, just two more weeks of testing and I'll have all my data. It's always good getting to the end of testing (something that takes a heck of a lot longer in patient studies, hence the ongoing saga of my clinical trial), and I'll be interested to see what the results are.

This week, I finally finished my clinical psychology essay. This is the last short essay I'll write at Kent, so it's a bit of a milestone. Now all I have left are the second half of my dissertation and an extended essay for neuroscience, then all of my coursework will be done! Four exams, and then graduation. I have to admit, things have gone very, very quickly since I got my master's place. I suppose that's what a happier outlook does to you!

I started preparing for my exams yesterday. Revision is an awful time of the year if you do it properly. Usually between 8 and 12 hours each day of poring over notes, condensed notes, textbooks and lists of names and dates. It's not fun or easy for anyone, good student or not. But, it's definitely worth it once you see the grades on the paper! In fact, it's two months today and I'll be done with my degree. That is a scary thought!

Tuesday this week saw the last of my French classes. I'll be very sad to see the end of them to be honest, although when I go to UCL I expect I will take the next class up to build upon what I've already learned. In two weeks, I'll also be on my way to Paris! It'll be a nice break before I start the hell of revision, plus I'll have the chance to practice what I've learned in my classes. Hopefully I won't make too much of a fool of myself. In any case, I'm sure it will be a great trip and I'm really, really looking forward to it.

The other piece of good news I had this week was getting over the £1,000 mark on my MSc fundraiser! Thank you so much to those of you who shared and donated! It's officially less than 6 months until I start now, and I'm getting more and more excited about everything.

Finally, I've been tutoring over the last week or so. It's been a new experience, and I'm glad that I can help people out with their work. I enjoy cognitive and biological psychology very much, and I hope that I make the topic interesting for my student.

While I was teaching the other day, my student asked how I got into psychology, and I remembered what a strange story that one makes. I can't remember who I've told about this before, so I figured it would be an interesting thing to write on here. Here goes.

When I was younger, I was really into a band called Travis (still am, of course!). You'll probably recognise most of their songs, even if you don't know the band (Why Does It Always Rain On Me, Sing, etc.). I saw them live a couple of times, and met a few of the band members (they remembered me too, by the way, and the lead singer wrote to me regarding a show review I'd written on their site!). Anyway, their second album is called 'The Man Who'. It's a bit of a strange title, admittedly. The man who, what? I looked up the origins of the name once, and discovered the album was named after a book by Dr Oliver Sacks: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Of course, it looked extremely interesting, so I went ahead and bought the book. The book itself describes conditions such as hemispatial neglect and agnosia, and talks about the people behind the conditions. From then on, I've been completely hooked on learning more about these problems, and what can be done to help the people who are affected by them. Dr Sacks is a complete hero of mine, and last year I was privileged enough to meet him. He talks a lot about the human element to cognitive and neurological disorders, and how often in science and medicine it's easy to forget about the people behind them. The talk that I saw him give spoke of how we should be mindful of patients, and ultimately do things not for the sake of knowledge, but to truly improve people's lives. This is something I will take with me as I (hopefully) advance through my career, and every time I've worked with a patient I make sure to be careful that I'm helping the person, rather than investigating a treatment.

So, there you have it. From music to neuroscience. It's a random story, but hopefully a good one.

Positive

It's now week 21! After Friday, I have another three weeks before the end of term, and then starts the one month+ revision period. While I tend to find exams ok, I have to say I loathe the revision period. It's almost two months of shutting yourself away every day for hours on end, reading and re-learning everything you already know. I put myself through this hell for the grades, and thankfully it pays off. Luckily, the F1 season has started up again, so I consider these weekends to include enforced breaks while I watch the race. It saves my sanity, that's for sure!

This year, I have very few exams - only four. I'll be done on the 28th of May, and I'm not sure how I'll feel once the final exam is over. I remember feeling slightly shell-shocked once I'd finished my second year exams, although there were a lot more with not quite as long to revise in between. This year, the final exams marks not only the end to the torture of revision, but also the end of my degree. I have to say, it's been four years of ups and downs, but right now I'm definitely on an 'up' swing.

Aside from receiving my exam timetable, last week I also registered for graduation! This has been a very long time coming - I think I wanted to book my graduation at the same time as my friends last year booked theirs, so I'm so happy I finally have it sorted. I'm sure the ceremony will be incredibly boring, but at least I will have my degree officially, and it will be a celebration of sorts. Plus, I get to wear the ridiculous hat, which will be something to laugh about.

As well as the news about my graduation and my exams, I've also been very encouraged by the response to my master's degree. It's been just over a week since I received the news, and I think it's now finally sunk in. The next step is for me to raise the money to afford my tuition fees, course costs, and travel expenses to and from London each day. I need to raise around £13,000 for this (ideally more to be on the safe side with the travel), and now I'm just over the halfway mark!

Trying to raise such a large amount of money in such a short amount of time isn't easy. If I wasn't so desperate to do the degree right away, I would defer for a year in order to find a job and raise the full amount on my own. As it is, I'm working as a research assistant and a clinical study coordinator alongside my studies (makes for very busy weeks and very, very long hours), which has given me most of what I have earned so far. It's hard work, but I certainly don't shy away from this, and it will definitely be worth it when I'm up in London! I'm very lucky too that I receive a scholarship from my current university, all of which has been put towards my fees. My final bursary payment this month will also head straight to my savings account to boost the total.

As well as everything I'm doing myself, I'm also looking to charities and foundations for grants to study. While I haven't heard anything back from these places as of yet, I'm hopeful that at least one will show sympathy towards my plight and help me raise the rest of my fees! UCL also offer two scholarships for which I may be eligible, however as I won't know the outcome of my application to these until a month before I start, I'd rather not run the risk of not having the tuition covered should my applications be unsuccessful.

Perhaps the most meaningful money I have raised has been donated by some truly wonderful people on my fundraising page. I have to admit, I set the page up completely on the off-chance that someone would want to help me, and I am completely overwhelmed by the fact that so many people have helped me! I still have a way to go on the fundraiser, and so I'd be very, very grateful if you could check it out and share the link (or even donate if you can!). Even the smallest amount will go straight towards my MSc costs, and I promise to keep everyone updated as well as I can. You can find the fundraising page at the following link: http://www.youcaring.com/tuition-fundraiser/maria-s-master-s/127559

So, all in all I've had a very good week. It is certainly a big change from the past four months, where my life has been dominated by uncertainty and bad news. I'm hoping that the positive news and good feelings will continue right up until the end of my degree, and on into summer. The aims of this week include finishing my last short essay at this university, and fathoming the data analysis for my dissertation. Let's hope that these two pieces of coursework go as well as the rest.

ACCEPTED!

My blog has been somewhat stagnating of late, or has been rather negative in tone. Honestly, not much has been happening beyond the usual boring rigours of student life - essays, note-taking, and more essays. In my case, this has included essays, note-taking, and conducting research in the lab all day. Still, this is what I want to do, so I can't complain.

This week, however, I have GOOD news! After months of waiting, heartache, and a rollercoaster of other emotions, I have finally been accepted for an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London! Getting into UCL has been a dream of mine for a very, very long time. The university is one of the best in the world for neuroscience research, and I wanted to be a part of it. It feels fantastic to say that in six months' time I will be studying there.

I applied for the MSc way back in January, and it had been a long time waiting. Over the last week I was rapidly losing hope, and generally being a pain to live with and listen to (I cannot thank my family and friends enough for putting up with me while I was nothing more than a bundle of stress and anguish!). On Friday, the applications website finally updated from 'Application Complete' to 'Currently being processed by Admissions' - I'll admit that at this point my anxiety reached a whole new level, and I spent most of the day searching through forums to see when other people had received an answer following this status change. Searching through forums brought a mix of hope and terror. I managed to find out that, no, this change didn't mean I'd been accepted, and generally people received an answer at 2am.

I did consider staying up until I had the answer from UCL on Friday night/Saturday morning, although my tiredness got the better of me. Needless to say, I didn't really sleep that well. I woke up at 2:30am, and did wonder whether to check the applications website at that moment and get it over with. Thankfully, I came to my senses and went back to sleep. When I woke up again at 5:30, curiosity got the better of me. I'd already opened the login screen on my phone, so I clicked the relevant buttons and awaited my answer.

You can imagine my relief when I saw that the answer was positive. Far from jumping around the room (it was still early after all), I smiled and let the adrenaline die down a little. At 6am I got up, told my parents, and let the news sink in.

So, I've finally achieved a goal of getting a place. Now, I need to raise my tuition fees. I've managed to save a fair proportion of the tuition, although I still need the rest and enough money to commute to London each day. I'm reluctant to take out a career and development loan, and so I'm hoping to raise the money through scholarships, hard work, and the kindness of others. I've set up a fundraising page, and I am hoping that you lovely people can share it for me (or even donate if you would like!). You'll have my gratitude forever, and if there's some way I can repay you then please let me know. The fundraising page can be seen here, and I'll be posting regular updates on my progress from now on. It seems exciting times are ahead at last!

Nothing To See Here

Yeah, I know at the start of writing this blog I said I'd be posting every week until the end. You might have noticed that this was a lie. I've missed the past two blog posts, and now I'm on week 6 of my second term. Halfway through my last taught term here at university. The end is finally in sight!

The reason for my tardiness in posting an update is pretty simple. Nothing has really happened. The last two weeks have been pretty boring - it was reading week last week, and I don't really remember if anything significant happened the week before. Probably not. So, rather than stringing something together to try and make things sound exciting or at least remotely interesting, I figured I'd leave the blog alone.

To tell you the truth, nothing much is likely to happen this week. I thought it was going to be a fairly busy one, but, as always, participants cancel their appointments and leave you with not much to do. Not that I'm complaining - this week was going to be stupidly full of things to do, and I wasn't sure that I'd have time to breathe, eat or sleep. But now, I seem to have a decent workload, making breathing, eating and sleeping possible. Hurrah!

The real reason I wanted to write something was simply to mark the halfway point of this term. I'm over halfway through all of my coursework for this year, with only a short essay, a long essay and my dissertation left to finish. The short essay should be done in two/three weeks, the dissertation hopefully by the end of March, and the long essay will be done a week or two after I have the question. I'm also thinking ahead to my exams, although I can't plan my revision schedule until I have my exam timetable - hopefully this will be around mid-March.

So, six weeks left to go. It's very strange to think I'm coming to the end now, although it's a pretty good feeling too.

Decisions

I knew applying for postgraduate places would be a rollercoaster, but I didn't think it would be this bad. Needless to say, I've not had much luck on the PhD front. I knew the programmes I was applying for were competitive, but what I didn't consider was the influence of internal applicants and the value of a master's degree. Coupled with a horrible interview last week, I think I can definitely say I've reached the lowest point of the rollercoaster, and now I have some tough decisions to make.

Over the last four years (well, six if you include my A-Level years too), I've worked incredibly hard to get anywhere close to fulfilling my ambitions. I decided to take an extra year to finish my degree so that I could gain experience, and hopefully bypass the need to obtain an MSc degree before embarking on a PhD. Since the second year of university, I've been working on various research projects. I've seen patients, worked on novel neuromodulation techniques with patients and I've even published a paper. My supervisors and other academic tutors all told me it should be possible to get a place on a PhD programme - even at top universities. I was encouraged to go to Oxbridge and even Harvard university due to my academic record. So, the fact that I've been unsuccessful is a bit baffling, and at the moment I'm left confused and fed up that I'm in the same position I would have been in had I finished my degree a year earlier.

I'm not annoyed at my academic tutors - they've been nothing but supportive and encouraging. When I have asked for some sort of an explanation for why things haven't worked out, I've been informed that universities often favour applicants who are already students there. So, in programmes where there are no more than 6 places and 300 applicants, you can imagine the level of competition. While I've got experience and a very high degree average, it seems this isn't enough when my performance is compared with, say, a MSc student already at the university I want to go to.

So, what next? Honestly, I don't know. My only real option is to complete a master's degree, but I'd have to throw over £9,000 on tuition fees for one year, plus travel or living expenses to London. I'm looking at spending £15,000 in a single year. Sure, it's an investment, but to use all of that money on one year with no guarantee of progressing further afterwards is terrifying. Once I would have finished the MSc, I would have little or no money (at best - at worst, I'd be in more debt on top of the near £30,000 I've already spent on the BSc). That means no cushion on starting my PhD - and PhD stipends aren't exactly huge. There's no easy answer to this, and right now I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind to make a decision.

I read a report about encouraging women to stay on in science (which you can read here, if you're really interested). While women are encouraged to study STEM subjects, they don't tend to follow careers in this area. Science is difficult to get into, and a lot of sacrifices have to be made. Social lives and relationships may suffer in the pursuit of a career. Honestly, I'm prepared for this should I get into neuroscience. I don't think I've wanted something so much as this - I love the work I've done so far, and I would enjoy a career that enables me to use my knowledge to do something good. However, the main barrier for me is the master's degree. I feel that science is a closed door to people who don't have money to throw at degrees, and this is a much bigger barrier than gender.

If I had the money right now, I would go for the degree. At least that way I knew I would have done everything I could to get into the field, and if it didn't work out then so be it. However, I don't have the money, and I'm not sure to make the money in time. I don't particularly want to take a year out and work minimum wage jobs to get anywhere close to the tuition fees - I would rather work as a research assistant, as it would give me another year's experience. Problem is, research assistantships don't tend to pay much money, and there's no guarantee that any jobs will be around once I finish my BSc. My other option is to give up, and find an alternative career. I'm just not sure what I'm good at beyond passing exams and conducting research.

Right now, things don't feel great. All I can hope for is that something will turn up, but I'm fed up of putting my life on hold. If I knew I had no hope or ability in this field, things wouldn't feel so bad, but the fact that my main barrier is money is a form of torture. It's not fair, and it's not right, but I can do nothing about it. At least I know that, whatever happens, I'll leave university with a good degree - even if I'm not sure what to do with it right now.

Week 14

In the four years since I've been at university, I've always found that the second term goes faster than the first. This year is definitely no exception. Tomorrow is the 1st of February already! One month closer to graduation, one month closer (hopefully) to postgraduate study.

There's not really been much change this week in terms of lectures. My lecturer sought out my knowledge during a neuroscience lecture, and announced to the class that I had published a paper on the topic being discussed. That was a pretty nice moment, although I doubt it'll win me many friends. My clinical psychology lecturer was a strange man. We'd never been taught by him before, and the fact that he started the lecture by saying 'people who get first class degrees have no personality' didn't exactly make me warm to him. Still, it was only two hours out of my life, and the topic wasn't so bad.

Otherwise, all I've really been doing is research work. The clinical trial is running smoothly, and I'm almost done with the first part of a new lot of research assistant work. Hopefully, this work will continue throughout the year, as I'm finding the dearth of coursework somewhat tedious. I'm halfway through one piece of work, planning on writing my dissertation next week and then it's just two essays until freedom!

One exciting piece of news I have today is that in April I will be going to Paris! My French classes have been going very well, and so I've decided to go on the class trip. It will be a nice break after the term ends, and I will be forced to use the French I have learned! I'll be away for four days from the 12th to the 15th of April, and everything is taken care of by the school of languages. It's definitely something I'm looking forward to (thanks Dad for making it happen!).

Back to the School of Psychology

It's been over a month since I last wrote my blog. I know I said I was going to try and write something for every week of my final year at university, but I have to confess that I didn't feel like writing during the last week of my first term. The reason for this is simply that I had bad news, and for a little while I'd fallen out of love with academia. Thankfully, I'm beginning this blog on a happier note, as my return has found me in a bit of a happier mood than the end of the last term.

So, week 13. This is officially the start of my final taught term at university. Hooray! It's also the term in which I find out my exam timetable and my graduation date - all exciting stuff. Over the Christmas break, I managed to not think much about psychology for quite some time, something which I think I needed. It's all too easy to get overwhelmed by plans, and when those plans don't work out, it's easy to get disheartened. In these cases, it's best just to stop for a while, step back, and breathe, and what better excuse than Christmas? Cakes to bake, family to see and presents to wrap. After the season of debt and obesity ended and 2014 began, I resumed working.

Last term, I only had one piece of coursework due in, and that was back in November! While I'd tinkered with my other three essays, I hadn't made an impressive amount of progress, but I had enough of a foundation to mean that I was finished with the majority of my coursework before returning to university for the second term. I have to admit, it's a nice feeling, having coursework ready to hand in a week or so before a deadline. All of the stress is taken away. Although it is important to avoid the public questions of other students, just in case you start to doubt what you've written. In any case, I'm expecting a good grade overall this year, and I can push the current coursework out of my mind for three weeks while it is being marked.

So what else is new? Not a whole lot, I must admit. I've applied for a master's degree at UCL - it seems that to be accepted onto a lot of PhD students you have to be an internal candidate, and thus I was largely unsuccessful despite my grades and experience. I guess all the hard work in the world can't save you from being unlucky. While I was pretty down about this at the time (a lot of soul-searching and finding shoulders to cry on [thanks to those of you who put up with my madness, by the way...] occurred following rejection emails), I think I've slowly moved on. While I'm not overjoyed at the prospect of having to raise £15,000 before September, the MSc programme I've applied for looks great, and hopefully next year I should be in a much better position to obtain my PhD. I suppose everything works out eventually.

In other news, the clinical trial I am running at university finally appears to be going swimmingly, after a lot of false-starts and drama. For the first time, I can honestly say I am enjoying working on the project completely - and being told that "you rock" by the company sponsoring the trial is always nice! I'm also looking at working for another one of my lecturers this term, which should hopefully boost the MSc fund and give me still more research experience. Despite only having four hours of lectures this term, I have the feeling that I'm going to be very busy.