Support thread for students, mature and otherwise...

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Grast_girl Mar 2020 11:52pm, 6 Mar 2020 873 posts	0 Grast_girl Absolutely true. Perhaps start with a better one and come back to it.
Kittenheels Kath Mar 2020 11:35am, 8 Mar 2020 3,233 posts	0 Kittenheels Kath It's good that you're making progress Carp, well done. It was reassuring, too, to know that you found finding sources difficult. It might really be because no one has covered that ground before, which makes it all the more worth doing. I was worried that the reason I couldn't find anything on my topic was because the search skills I use on a daily basis to find pretty much everything my students ask for, had suddenly deserted me. Then it dawned on me that perhaps no one has written on this particular subject. My tutor then pointed out that even if people have written on the subject, it shouldn't stop me: thousands of dissertations have been written on Mozart, for instance, but that doesn't stop people writing more about him. Can't remember if I've said this here before, but having got through the transfer from MPhil to PhD, any sense of imposter syndrome I had has been magnified massively.
Grast_girl Mar 2020 11:57am, 8 Mar 2020 876 posts	0 Grast_girl I'm afraid the imposter syndrome never really goes away kittenheels. I still get major bouts of it despite being a lecturer for 4 years.
LindsD Mar 2020 12:44pm, 8 Mar 2020 33,889 posts	0 LindsD And me. I've been SL for five. And I'm 50. Wish there was a pill you could take.
LindsD Mar 2020 12:44pm, 8 Mar 2020 33,890 posts	0 LindsD ION we are now contingency planning....
Dr PhFleecyD Mar 2020 12:57pm, 8 Mar 2020 48,669 posts	0 Dr PhFleecyD Sometimes there is genuinely a gaping hole in the literature. Like when I decided to investigate the literature on New Year’s resolutions only to find about 3 papers! Because psychologists are too fucking snooty to research something millions of people do every year...
Grast_girl Mar 2020 1:28pm, 8 Mar 2020 877 posts	0 Grast_girl Yep, us too. Not sure how to do labs online, and if I come up with an alternative for the exams, I'm not sure whether we'll ever go back to them.
um Mar 2020 1:43pm, 8 Mar 2020 1,835 posts	0 um Grast_girl - can't exams be done on-line? All my professional ones for the last 15 years or so were on-line, either in a (eg) Prometric type controlled facility or at my desk at home. If at my desk, where I could access anything, the exams were generally structured so if you spent any time looking things up (other than quick checks on names or refs) you wouldn't have time to fully complete. But even in my first degree (mid 70s) and my MBA (late 90s) most exams were open-book, or allowed (again, eg) 1 sheet of A4 personl notes. I know that can't work for lab based or clinical tests, but anything non 'practical' could be remote & online? Or not?
Grast_girl Mar 2020 5:59pm, 8 Mar 2020 878 posts	0 Grast_girl It would be tricky. We have enough issues with students cheating in exams as it is. We'd have to be very sure that they were actually the ones taking the exam. I wonder whether we should try the Italian system, where they just do vivas for all exams.
Zeb Mar 2020 7:18pm, 11 Mar 2020 855 posts	0 Zeb Any top tips for a new student? I’m doing a Chartered Management Degree Apprenticeship through work based distance learning (I work in the admin side of a university), so balancing work, study and family is going to be an experience!