A GUIDE FOR PERPLEXED STUDENTS
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2. TIME MANAGEMENT
(a) How hard do I need to work?
(b) How can I keep on top of my work?
(c) Is there any way of getting off the treadmill?
(a) How hard do I need to work?
The short answer is, probably, rather harder than you imagined
before you came up. The normal rate for many humanities degrees is three
tutorials in every two weeks of full term. This does not allow much time
for watching the grass grow. Exactly how hard you work will depend on
your own goals and your particular personal circumstances. If you have
family commitments it will obviously be very difficult to give as much
time to your studies as someone who is completely unattached. Again, if
you have a burning ambition to obtain a Congratulatory First you will
have to put in rather more effort than someone who merely wishes to put
'B.A.' after their name without bothering too much about the class of
degree. A good rule of thumb, however, is to treat your studies as you
would a full-time job. It may very well be that you have given up a job
to come to Manchester College; if so, then it is surely worth a similar
degree of commitment. That said, even if you have designs on a Regius
Professorship, it is not so much a matter of working the maximum number
of hours the week will contain as using whatever time you give to your
studies in a disciplined, organized and constructive fashion. If you do
that, rather than spending your work time making cups of coffee, staring
out of the window, and complaining to your fellow students about
everything you're not getting done, you'll probably find you can keep on
top of your work well enough, but you'll also find that it's mentally
taxing, so that there is a limit to how much you can usefully do in any
one day or any one week. To attempt to push yourself beyond that limit
(whatever it may be for you) will almost certainly prove to be
counter-productive (since you'll lose far more through tiredness and
inability to concentrate the next day than you ever gained by forcing
yourself to work that extra hour). What is required is sensible
commitment, not fanaticism. A forty hour working week (including
lectures and tutorials but not `dead time' spent messing around or
getting from A to B) would represent a good solid achievement. A thirty
hour week (unless you are a rare and rapidly-working genius) is probably
too little; a fifty hour week (except for a short spurt or unless you
have remarkable stamina) is probably too much. These figures are meant
to represent average weeks in full term and assume that you will also be
working for a substantial proportion of each vacation (though here
everyone must accept that your personal circumstances may limit your
ability to do so). (b) How can I keep on top of my work?
The only answer is effective time management. This need
not be anything very sophisticated, neither does it have to involve a
punishing schedule. If, for example, you decide to spread your working
week over six days (which you may as well do unless you need to go home
at weekends) then on average you will have four working days per
tutorial essay. If you then allow two and a half days for reading and
one and a half for writing and checking over your essay, you simply need
to work back from whatever deadline you set yourself for getting your
essay done n days, hours or minutes before the tutorial time (according
to temperament!). Of course, this nice-sounding scheme can get upset in
practice by tutors who insist on scheduling tutorials at awkward times
that don't fit it too well with your best-laid plans (particularly if
both tutors you are working with in any one term force you to come early
in the week). This can be mitigated by planning and working ahead to
avoid any foreseeable crises (such as two tutorials on the same day in
ten days' time). If the worst comes to the worst, however, there may be
nothing for it but to skimp on your reading and do the best you can in
the time available. (c) Is there any way of getting off the
treadmill?
However much you enjoy your studies, there will almost certainly
come a time (probably around fifth week each term if not before!) when
the need to keep meeting tutorial deadlines will start to feel like a
treadmill. This is not surprising, since the production of three
reasonably substantial essays every fortnight does make considerable
demands on the student. The potentially good news, however, is that
given favourable circumstances and co-operative tutors, there is a way
in which you may be able to spread the load. If your tutor is willing to
give you an essay list and reading list in advance (some are, some
aren't), then the most profitable use you can make of any study time you
assign yourself in the vacation is to do three or four of the following
term's essays (it is nearly always possible to borrow sufficient books
from the various libraries to take home over the vac to make this
possible). In my experience this is far more useful than doing general
background reading, which I find tends not to stick in my mind half so
well as reading which is directed towards a specific essay. It can also
help you find time for the odd breathing space in an otherwise
overcrowded eight week term. Previous Page