Thoughts from a Third Year

I am a third year university student now and I don't quite know how that happened. I try to avoid cliches when and where I can but they're all true: time does fly, it does only feel like yesterday that I enrolled as a fresher and if you blink for too long you probably will miss it. I've been back at uni for nearly two weeks now so I thought I'd take this opportunity to gather my thoughts and consider what I've learnt thus far as I go into my final year. 

1. I don't know what I'm doing and that's okay. 

By now, you'd think I would have some idea of what I want to do after I graduate, but I don't. Not really, anyway. From early childhood we're always asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and our education system leads us to believe that we need to have our whole careers planned out at the age of 14, but I've learnt that that's not true. Sure, having an idea at the age of 14 is useful because it helps you pick your GCSEs which will determine your A Level options and eventually your degree choice, but it's definitely not essential. It's become clearer to me now that just because I'm (hopefully!) going to graduate with an English degree, I might not necessarily end up in a job that will need one and I have every right to change my mind about career paths whenever I want to. Those careers meeting you had in year 9 don't seem so important now, do they?

What I've also come to realise is that no one else really know's what they're doing either, which makes me feel a bit better. There are always a few that seem to have it all mapped out, but the majority of people I've spoken to, from uni or school or work, don't have a clue. I feel like we should know by now, but it's a bit like when you're at school and you haven't done your homework- when you find out nobody else has either, it's not so bad because you're all in it together.

2. I should be more organised. Seriously. 

I need to learn how to use my time better. I had a tutorial earlier this week and my lecturer said that he's always thought of me as a very organised student. It was nice to hear, but I think he's wrong. Yes, I'm much more organised than some of my fellow students and I've never had to pull an all-nighter to finish an essay, but I don't use my time very well. I tell myself that I'm "working" by having my study books next to me while I spend hours browsing Pinterest and I feel like I deserve a tea break when I've written half a paragraph, but that doesn't get the essays finished! This year, I know that I need to get better at actually doing work when I say I'm going to and prepare for assignments in plenty of time, but who am I kidding? We all know that "being more organised" will be top of my new year's resolution list for the next decade. 

3. Everything counts now. Oh man. 

The marks earned in my first year didn't count towards anything. My second year was only worth about 30% of my final grade I think. Third year counts, and that's scary! There's no brushing off a low mark anymore because everything is important- especially the dissertation. My dissertation project scares me, mainly because it's so BIG, but also because at the moment there is no project. In our introductory lecture last week we were told that almost anything can be made into a research topic and that we needed to pick something that we liked enough and cared enough about, so that we wouldn't get bored of it by the end. I like a lot of thing and there are plenty of causes I care about, but do I like them enough? Who knows. Our proposal has to be submitted in about 5 weeks, so I'm hoping for some inspiration before then...

I'm sure there are lots more things that I could add to this list but I think I'll leave it here for now. Let's just put it this way: I'm in the third year and it's a bit scary mary. I know I'll look back at it fondly in 12 months time, but that's a long way off. We'll get there though, and I'll get to wear a funny graduation hat. I can't wait.