{"id":511,"date":"2017-09-20T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T07:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=511"},"modified":"2021-04-22T15:47:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T14:47:28","slug":"third-year-you-how-to-survive-with-your-sanity-intact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=511","title":{"rendered":"Third Year & You: How to survive with your sanity intact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Returning for your third year as a History undergraduate? This blog was written by former History student Tach\u00e9 Smith, and in it she reflects back on her final year of study and offers tips on how to work through it. Tach\u00e9 graduated in July 2017 with a 2.1 and is now looking for museum work in her home country of Bermuda.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of things said about the third year, most of it revolving around how easy or how hard it is; however, it just isn\u2019t that simple. The third year of university is one of the most satisfying and frustrating experiences you will ever have. It will challenge you in ways you never expected. The good news is that the first and second year have already prepared you for the third year, and if ever you feel like it\u2019s getting overwhelming, the University has a host of people willing to help, like the learning development tutors<\/a>, the library staff<\/a>, and the well-being counselors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Better still though, we have our tutors within the History Department<\/a>. You\u2019ll have met most if not all of them throughout your time at Portsmouth. You have your dissertation supervisor, your personal tutor from previous years, and that tutor who you just clicked and feel comfortable with. It doesn\u2019t matter if you have classes with them this term or even this year. Reach out to them and they will absolutely be willing to help you with any questions you have.<\/p>\n

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Image courtesy of Tach\u00e9 Smith<\/p><\/div>\n

For some generalized advice regarding maintaining some level of sanity this year, I recommend if you haven\u2019t already invested in a portable flash drive that you do so. It may seem basic, or unnecessary, but it will become a life saver at the weirdest time. Your dissertation is slowly going to become your life this year, and having it somewhere safe outside of the library network and your personal computer will give you an extra level of comfort, especially if you still have travel to do for further research for your dissertation. You are going to want, and need your dissertation on as many devices, clouds, and in as many email inboxes as you can manage.<\/p>\n

Another piece of advice for you. Don\u2019t delete! It might sound crazy, but seriously don\u2019t delete, have multiple documents, have one be the \u201cfinal copy\u201d of your draft chapters. In the meantime, though, don\u2019t be afraid to have extra files, this is going to be a long, time-consuming piece of work. Just because something doesn\u2019t work in one area of your dissertation doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t work in another, or at least inform it. Seriously, while everything you write won\u2019t be academic gold it can at least inform your future research. When you are writing if something seems a little off just cut it and paste it into a new document.<\/p>\n

The third year is the year where there is a lot more freedoms and responsibility academically. The tutors are still there, so don\u2019t forget about them. Beyond that though, schedule your time. You have a lot of \u2018free\u2019 time (when you\u2019re not in class), which is good news. It gives you all the time you need to work on your dissertation, your special subjects, and group research. More importantly, though, it gives you enough time for you, and your social life. The third year is not the beginning of the end of having fun at university. In fact, if you do it right it can be the best year overall.<\/p>\n

Take advantage of the amount of time you have and remember you must not only work hard academically but socially. Now is the time if you haven\u2019t done so already to join a society or sport. Might I give a heavy-handed suggestion that you join the History Society<\/a>? It’s really cool, a mixture of fun and academic events, and most importantly organizes a careers\u2019 event geared towards us specifically. Seriously though, it doesn\u2019t matter if you do join a society or you don\u2019t but try to strike a balance between coursework and social life. Both are necessary for a fun and successful year.<\/p>\n

Take the time out to explore a bit more locally if you haven\u2019t. Winter will be right around the corner, and with it, the weather will be turning. That doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t take advantage of the seafront and the commons. Remember to get out of the house, the library, and enjoy any good weather while you can. Hangout with your mates a bit more outside of a night out. Movie and Games nights with some good food and better company can do wonders for your state of mind. Most importantly though take time for yourself, without any outside pressure of academics or socialization, to wind down.<\/p>\n

The third year is the best year of University you can have if you handle it correctly. Manage your time, and you\u2019ll be as comfortable as one can be with a dissertation deadline looming, and far more relaxed than you ever thought you could be at the end of the year. After all that, I’ll end by wishing you all good luck in the upcoming year, it\u2019ll be over sooner than you think, and when you look back you will be astonished to see how much you managed to accomplish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Returning for your third year as a History undergraduate? This blog was written by former History student Tach\u00e9 Smith, and in it she reflects back on her final year of study and offers tips on how to work through it. Tach\u00e9 graduated in July 2017 with a 2.1 and is now looking for museum work in her home country of Bermuda. There\u2019s a lot of things said about the third year, most of it revolving around how easy or how hard it is; however, it just isn\u2019t that simple. The third year of university is one of the most satisfying and frustrating experiences you will ever have. It will challenge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[599,83,14,85,82,29],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning_in_focus","tag-dissertations","tag-final-year","tag-history","tag-history-society","tag-students","tag-study"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_20170527_224633_377-1-e1505316776133.jpg?fit=2046%2C993&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-8f","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}