I'm thinking about my fellow students across the country tonight, all you other future Bachelors and Bachelorettes out there embarking on the next great journey of your lives. Our books are arriving, our studies are beginning, and the pressure is already beginning to pile on.
The truth is that I've never been much good at studying. To a spectator it must seem easy: I read the books, I memorise the words and then I regurgitate them in an exam. There's always something blocking me, some procrastination or debilitating anxiety which stops me from completing my studies.
We have to be brave when facing new challenges, or when re-attempting failed challenges. Bravery is facing what may come, head on. Bravery is acknowledging that we're afraid. Afraid of failure and afraid of accepting our own shortcomings. But, it's all going to be okay. It's all going to be okay.
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Good luck now is the time! Your blog has described a lot of us!!
Oops. Friday night beer-fuelled waffle alert!
"I'm thinking about my fellow students across the country tonight, all you other future Bachelors and Bachelorettes"
Why can't one get a Spinster of Science degree? I've never understood why everyone tolerates the anachronistic and sexist traditions of education. Mortar board hats, indeed!
"The truth is that I've never been much good at studying."
You'll find that is true of many OU students…at the start. Most of those who are good at studying have no cause to be here - they got their degrees after school. The rest of us do it the hard way.
"There's always something blocking me, some procrastination or debilitating anxiety which stops me from completing my studies."
Life. Life does that. As for procrastinating, I wrote the scale: Procrastination Rating Assessment Table. I think most people doing an OU degree have very clean toilets, well-tended lawns, lots of shelves up, very clean cars, lots of sharpened pencils and lots of plans on how to best allocate study time. And lots of anxiety about having still made no progress this week. But if you try to keep to the weekly planner and take advantage of the tutor, student support and be aware there are techniques for dealing with blockers, procrastination and anxiety, you will get there.
"Bravery is facing what may come, head on."
Aye. Feel the fear and do it anyway.
"Afraid of failure and afraid of accepting our own shortcomings."
It's worse than that. You'll be getting feedback from tutors that will hurt. They will point out the shortcomings, starting with the ones you already know about, and then some more. It is how you react to that, reflect on it, find out how to overcome them and then practise the new techniques you've learned that will determine how much you grow as part of getting the degree. Don't accept your shortcomings. You're here to overcome them (or learn how to navigate around them).
"But, it's all going to be okay. It's all going to be okay."
I'll warn you now: it won't. A downside of being a mature student is that life has more opportunities to interfere with study. Also, if studying part-time, that gives life even longer to come up with stuff. But, if you are determined to get the degree and are committed not to give up when some life event comes along - even the really horrid ones - you will get that degree. I promise. (And if studying part-time, you have more capacity to deal with that life stuff too.)
So some of it won't be OK. Some will be horrid and hard - otherwise getting a degree would not mean anything. But much will be really interesting and some will be great fun. And the exhilaration of a surprisingly good mark is greater than the disappointment of a poor one. But it all fades away when you finally get told you've been awarded the degree. All that heart-ache and worry just gets thrown onto the same pile of heart-ache and worry caused by going to big school, the first holiday without one's parents, leaving home, learning to drive, getting a mortgage, learning to live with someone - it is no worse than all those other "Oh my God, what have I done? I can't do this!" horrors that we all deal with. It really is just another of those. It's just fear of the unknown. Sadly, we can't see that at the start of the journey.
Hence you don't need much bravery. But stubbornness, determination and bloody-mindedness are useful. Following the blogs will help, seeing just how many others face blockers, anxiety and procrastination but manage to make progress despite them. You will not be alone.
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Great comment above!