Guest Blog - 5 Ways to make sure your final year is a Success

In our latest guest blog, a Keele Graduate offers some timely advice

5 Ways To Make Sure Your Final Year Is A Success

By Scarlett @BubbleJobs

Your final year can be a scary one - to start with you’ve probably heard horror stories about people struggling during their final year. Then you’ve got that resentful feeling towards the first and second year students who are having a whale of a time - and to top it all off you’ve got your job search to think about at the end of it.

Trust me, I understand that feeling – but you will get through it in one piece and you can still enjoy yourself - as long as you’re prepared. So I’ve come up with five ways to make sure your final year is a success. Hopefully this will help you start your final year on a high rather than a ball of anxiety.

 

1. Start As You Mean To Go On
    
   I can’t deny that you’re going to have times in your final year where you’re stressed and tired – that’s just a fact unfortunately. However you can keep this stress to an absolute minimum by starting your uni work early. There’s no rule that says you have to start an essay a week before it’s due - so start it as soon as you can – this way you’ve got loads of time to do a few drafts.
    
   Try and find out your deadline dates as soon as possible and get them written down on a calendar – then you know exactly what you’ve got to do. Remember that this year will count for the majority of your degree - so you don’t want to be leaving things until the last minute. Leaving things until the last minute can lead to silly mistakes – and unless you’re that annoying person who can do an essay the night before and still gets a 1^st – I’d be prepared.
    
2. Be Clever With Your Time
    
   Everyone procrastinates at some point but it’s important to not let it take over. From my experience I found that final years are pretty good at procrastinating. There’s no harm in being distracted once in a while - but if you’re doing it all the time then you just end up spending more time in the library than you need to.
    
   When you start your work, try and keep focused – I used to work all day Monday-Friday and then have the weekend off. This really did work, because I ended up with some proper time off.
    
   Not having some down time will make you tired and stressed – those two things are not good when you’re trying to revise or produce an amazing essay. So plan what time you’re going to work until and keep focused until that time.
    
    
    
3. Take A Break
   Leading on from my last point – in your final year your degree is obviously your priority, but you need to make sure you take some time out. There are a couple of reasons for this - a big one is that your brain can’t take staring at a computer or a book for a long period of time. If you spend eight hours working without a break you might start being a bit unproductive.
    
   So go and have a drink with a friend or go to a society. No one can say there aren’t enough societies at Keele – there are all kinds of weird and wonderful ones - so go and have some down time when you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall.
    
   Another reason is that this is your final year at Keele, so you need to make the most of it. You want to end the year on a high rather than being known as a hermit that never goes out – so try and have a night with your friends once a week.
    
4. Don’t Leave Your Job Search Until The Last Minute
    
   Your job search is probably the last thing on your mind right now - but if you want a job as soon as you finish uni you should really start thinking about your future.
    
   So get your CV sorted and start thinking about what you actually want to do when you have to leave the Keele bubble (scary I know). If you haven’t got much on your CV then try and get some experience under your belt – even if it’s just for a week over Christmas or Easter it shows that you haven’t been a lazy student for the past three years.
    
   If you pop down to the careers and employability team they can help you with all of the things above – they’ve got loads of resources and tips that can help you out. The sooner you start preparing for your job search the better!
    
5. Use Your Lecturers And Tutors

For some reason I only thought of going to see my tutor/lecturers in my final year and I wish I’d done it sooner to be honest. They’re there to give advice and help you with your assignments - so use them! You could be making a silly mistake that’s stopping you from getting the grade you want – your tutor can help you see this.

But at the same time don’t expect your tutor to do all the work for you – it doesn’t work like that unfortunately. Make sure you’ve got some questions at the ready and get a meeting booked!

 

Author Bio: Scarlett Wilson is a Keele University graduate and is currently working as a Digital Marketing Executive for Bubble Jobs – a niche digital jobs board that specialises in advertising digital, ecommerce, media and marketing jobs from the UK’s top brands. Follow her on Twitter: @Scarlett278 or find out more about Bubble Jobs at http://www.bubble-jobs.co.uk/