My top five favourite ways to procrastinate during exam season

For the (hopefully) last time in my University career, I am preparing for my exams. Being a postgraduate student, I find myself in an oddly calm yet panicked state. Part of my brain tells me not to worry; that I’ve done this so many times now that I’ve got it. The other half seems hell bent on making me a shaking panicked mess. Thankfully, neither side has won and this has resulted in me working feverishly for a few hours before taking a break and doing some A* procrastination.

Not everyone can work this way, and I certainly wouldn’t advise it unless you have practice. Over the past four years I’ve worked hard on being able to work quickly and efficiently, getting the job done but leaving myself time to do whatever else I want. However, whatever your working and revising style, all of us are guilty of procrastination at various levels.

The basic form is just zoning out in front of your screen for 20 minutes contemplating your own existence, and the extreme form is leaving the country for a weekend break in Frankfurt (as my friend is doing right now) insisting that you will work on the plane.

Considering this, I have compiled my five favourite ways to procrastinate, because they actually help me to work harder when I do get back to revision.

1. Lunch with family and impromptu dinner parties

I rarely see my relatives, but since my sister moved to Oxford it’s become a convenient halfway point between me in the South and my family in the Midlands. Yesterday I took the train to Oxford (actually spending as much time on the train as I did in the city) for a gorgeous lunch with my mum, aunt and youngest cousin.

Taking a day out is a great way to refresh your brain and supply a bit of extra panic to persuade you to work harder the next day. If you’re bored of revising, chances are your friends are too, so arrange to get together for some non-study related time and try and resist asking each other about coursework!

Oxford in the early May sunshine

Steak tastes better when you don’t have to pay for it

2. Napping

I love to nap and when I’m home all day sat at my desk, napping is my favourite escape from work. It doesn’t even matter how long I nap for, it can be 20 minutes or two hours but the effect is like rebooting your computer. I have more energy and feel more enthusiastic about working after some much-needed shut eye.

3. Playing guitar

I’m pretty sure there’s some science regarding playing musical instruments as a way of productively procrastinating. Guitars and keyboards can be cheap and don’t take up much space, and playing music gives you a sense of accomplishment, whilst also being pretty relaxing.

4. Cooking/Baking

Again, this is perfect productive procrastination. Spend some quality time in your kitchen and learn to make a new dish or get creative with something you already know how to do. Cooking is a great excuse to close the books for an hour or two and you can set up a laptop/tablet in the kitchen with you and watch something on Netflix whilst you’re doing it.

5. Work on your favourite piece of coursework/exam

Usually I dedicate the most time to the subjects I find the hardest and the least to the ones I really enjoy. Working isn’t really procrastination, but sometimes when I’m working on an essay that I’m really in to, I get the same feeling that I should be working on something else that’s harder and with an earlier deadline.

However, all of it needs to be done in the end and by using your favourite subject as a reward for working on the harder ones, you feel much happier about still being sat at the computer after six hours!

The things we all need to stay away from are definitely sitting down and just binge-watching TV shows or mindlessly scrolling through Facebook.

Good procrastination means giving your brain a rest from work by distracting it with something else that you find interesting. If you switch off completely it’s hard to switch back on.

Good luck with exam season everyone!

Emma 

My experience during my first Assessment Centre

Assessment Centres are tough. They consist of a long day full of exercises to determine whether or not you are fit for the company or organisation that you’re applying to. To top it off, you will be doing these tasks with other candidates applying for the same company. Daunting doesn’t begin to describe the day. Thankfully, the Careers and Employability service at the University offer mock assessment centre workshops and even video tips to help you.

My first Assessment Centre experience was with the Civil Service, with whom I completed an internship last summer. As an employer, I have found that the organisation values teamwork – concessions are much more important than bulldozing others who may not agree with you. Taking some time to understand the values of the company that you are working for is crucial; how you may fit in with the ethos is how assessors decide whether or not to give you the job.

Preparation started off a few days before. I had planned by journey with time to spare, prepared some notes, snacks and my outfit and went over my materials. My materials included notes on how to build rapport during group work, getting my points across without being too assertive, how I would structure a short presentation to a superior and certain points I can make about my work experience in my CV.

The day started off by getting introduced to other candidates. In hindsight this was quite an important part of the day. Building rapport with people you will be working with throughout the day can benefit your group during the exercises.

Group Work

The first exercise was group work. My assessment centre was for the British Civil Service so the aim of the exercise was for everyone in the group, who each represented a government department, to come to a consensus about a specific policy issue. This time our task was to decide which town in the country would be the best to build a hospital in. I was a representative for the Department for Transport and the brief that I was given instructed me to argue for the case of building in a specific town because of its good transport links. However, this was in contention with the others who wanted to build on other towns based on the preference of their respective departments.

The assessor was in the corner writing down their observations so it was important to get involved in the conversation otherwise they would not have anything to give you marks for. Looking up at people; using their names; leaning in from time to time; being aware of time and taking note of those who haven’t said much and including them in the conversation all get you more marks – or so I have been told. If I could have advised myself one to do one thing at the beginning of the exercise, it would have been to set criteria for the group at the beginning of the task: how do the options give value for money; affect public perception; feasible timelines and projected profits for the town and its surrounding area. Questions like these allow the group to have a structure for discussion.

The most important thing here is for the group to come to a decision. Accepting that other’s suggested options might be a better solution than yours is guaranteed to give you a better mark than not acknowledging that at all.

Policy Recommendation Exercise

The second task tested me on my individual ability to write quickly and professionally. I was given the brief of writing a balanced assessment of two policy options that are being considered and then recommend which action should be taken. It took a whole hour for this to be completed so I was very tired afterwards and this was only the second task of the day! The key to the task is to write as early as possible. There was no time for drafting! Since there is only a limited amount of time the assessors don’t expect the highest quality of work, instead they are testing how well you can complete the task in the time you are given. Once again, finishing the task is always the goal so think of the level that a high quality piece of work should have and then halve that!

What I wore during the Assessment Centre. Dress for the position you want, not the one you have!

Leadership Exercise

After a lunch with the other candidates, it was time to for me to be tested on my leadership abilities. The task involved giving a presentation to the assessor about how I will go about leading my team during a project. I was told that giving a structure to the presentation helps not only the assessor understand what is going on but also gets you more marks for clarity and logic.

In hindsight, I should have started with our current accomplishments with the project. This sets the scene for the next point which is where my team and I could improve on in terms of budget and timescale. Next I should have gone through the strengths and weaknesses of my small team and how I shall go about using their assets to the project’s benefit and how I could solve issues that may arise based on their weaknesses.

Finally, I would have summarised how my changes will affect the momentum of the project and whether or not this affects the schedule. The key thing here is to use “I” instead of “we” as you are being tested on your own ability to lead.

Interview

The last part of the day included a one-to-one interview with an assessor. As preparation for this task I went through my CV and used it as a template for my answers to the competency-based questions. Competency-based questions generally ask for you to give examples of times when you have showed your initiative, when you have shown good time management or when you have improved on something. The framework for answering these questions in the S.T.A.R. step:

S: What the situation was,
T: What the task was that needed to be done
A: What your subsequent actions were
R: The results of your overall way of dealing with the situation.

Again, the more detailed you are in your examples, the better. The Careers team have really helped me out with this through their Interview Workshops.

Overall, the day was tough and robust preparation for the day was certainly necessary. If you have an assessment centre coming up, the very best of luck to you. Don’t forget to let us know how it went and give us some tips too!

Rylyn

Alternative Tips to Staying Sane During Assignment Fever

There are many upsides to pursuing a university course like mine that’s assessed entirely through coursework, namely the fact that you never find yourself getting sucked into the January/Summer exam panic. It does mean instead, though, that when assignment deadlines do finally come around, they’re not exactly the nicest things in the world.

Of course, the first bunch of this year’s deadlines are now fast approaching, so work-mode has very much been initiated. This obviously means different things for different people; we all have our own working methods. Whereas some like to hibernate away in the reclusive work pods of Hartley Library, I find my brain better suited to locking myself in my room and chaining myself to my desk for the foreseeable future. Okay, it’s really not that dramatic; there are no actual restraints to speak of, it’s more about remaining focused mentally.

So without much further ado, here’s a little breakdown of the things I personally do to keep sane during these slightly heavier working days.

Dance Breaks

From even as far back as GCSE level, the concept of taking frequent breaks whilst working is drilled into our brains. You obviously don’t want to burn yourself out, and we all know when we’ve reached that stage where nothing productive is actually really happening. The trick is in noticing this as soon as possible and then… dancing.

Stop laughing. It’s actually incredible helpful. I mean, this is probably a little bit harder if you’re in a crowded library (in which case, I’d recommend sneaking off to a quiet corridor or toilet cubicle), but the theory behind it is solid.

When we take breaks, we so often find ourselves getting incredibly distracted, what with the internet existing and all. So a 5 minute Facebook stalk suddenly becomes a half-hour cat-video-fuelled odyssey through the weirdest reaches of YouTube, and then your whole working persona is shattered.
Dance breaks, however, are far more structured, provide you with plenty of great exercise and, most importantly, they wake your brain up considerably. Pick one or two particularly funky tracks (extra funky if you’re the sort that listens to music whilst working), maybe something you can sing-along to if you’re in a particularly empty spot, stand up from your work space, and just go to town.

Just let yourself go and enjoy the music, letting all your fears and worries about revision and essay writing completely slip away. All you care about in that moment is the rhythm of whatever you’re listening to.

Five minutes later, lo and behold, you’re cured. Suddenly you can return to your desk with your brain reset, fully prepped to get back to work.

There is no shame in boogieing away your essay stress.

Talk To Yourself

This one’s definitely a whole lot weirder if you’re in a crowded public space, but I’ve found over the years that having brief conversations with yourself about certain topics can actually help cement in your mind exactly what you want to say. This works particularly well with more abstract concepts and theories; having to explain out loud exactly what it is you’re trying to say is a great way to help you articulate it more clearly.

Obviously you could go and find another human being to talk to, but this could well lead to further distraction. A conversation might erupt. Suddenly you’re not talking about gender politics in Die Hard anymore - you’re discussing dinner plans, or your unexplainable hatred of that guy in The Apprentice. Or worse…you’re on Facebook, and the cat videos are back and once again your entire work focus crumbles.

Better to be safe than sorry. Those cat videos are mental poison.

Cloning not 100% necessary. 

Bring Your Deadline Forward A Few Days

Okay, this one is very easily the trickiest to do properly, and requires a lot of mental self-manipulation but if it works, you’ll never miss a deadline again.

I’ve found since first year that almost every single one of my assignments is due on a Tuesday afternoon and I’ve always been one for fail-safes in almost everything I do. If I need to get a bus or a train somewhere, I always get the one scheduled to arrive before the one I absolutely have to get. If I need to set aside some money to pay a certain bill, I’ll always set aside a little bit extra, just to be safe. And the same works for deadlines: if I have a deadline on a Tuesday, mentally my deadline is actually Sunday. Thus, no matter what happens, I have an extra two days packed in just in case something goes horrifically wrong. Like those cat videos taking over again.

This is a particularly hard one to pull off, because a lot of people (students in particular) need the stress of impending doom to actually get up and do something. To force yourself to do something early requires quite a bit of self-control, and so, if you don’t feel like you can manage such things, here’s a simple, although not exactly 100% foolproof solution: lie to yourself early on.

When you first get those deadline dates and you’re putting them in your calendar, bring them forward a few days. If your lecturer says it’s due on Thursday, put it in your calendar for Tuesday. This way, every time you check to see when your essay is due, you’ll always be thinking a few days ahead. As much as you might trust your own brain, fail-safes are always a good idea, just in case.

These are just a few of my own methods for keeping on top of things during these harsh working months. Feel free to give some of them a go but do remember, we all work differently and so we all have our own ways of remaining sane. Some of your methods might even be better than mine!

I do recommend that you try a dance break though, even just once.

Ben

Building a portfolio

After nearly eighteen years of education, from early homework assignments in Primary School to the full-blown essays, lab reports and dissertations of University, there was a surreal feeling in the air as I clicked the “Submit Assignment” button for the very last time.

It’s become very much second nature to check a diary of some sort and to see assignments aplenty staring back, so knowing that the final deadline had been met was a mixture of relief tinged with a weird sense of sadness. Now, with only two exams left, it feels like I’m on the home stretch of University and academia as a whole – slightly terrifying, but equally (if not more so) exciting!

My relief mainly came from getting through what’s usually the most challenging spell of the academic year, when assignments can often start to pile up. This three or four week period after Easter and just before exams is what everybody comes to know as ‘deadline season’, when every module competes to set deadlines which give you enough time to assimilate and apply the material covered before the holidays, while still allowing you enough time to actually produce the work. There’s plenty to get done, as reflected in the number of fellow students flocking to the ever-useful Hartley Library!

The result can often be something of a mad rush to keep on top of lots of assignments at once, particularly when the topics covered are as eclectic and interesting as those I’ve experienced. It’s sometimes quite difficult not to get so into one assignment, researching it more and enjoying it, that you neglect the others you’re tasked with, like with a design module I recently undertook - I spent most of my time on drawing up interface sketches, and nearly forgot about the written report element!

Likewise, deadline season is one of those times where the more you get done in advance (for example, at home over Easter – easier said than done when there are so many distractions!), the less pressure you’ll be under when the deadline date looms. Luckily, although I’d be the first to confess most of my Easter was spent reading for pleasure and career-researching, not to mention catching up with very important television, I’d covered enough ground with my work that I’ve been dealing with a very manageable workload. The end result of it all, though, is hopefully something I can be proud of.

I think one thing which people perhaps might not associate with my course in Software Engineering as part of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is a surprisingly vast element of creativity. Quite often you’re tasked with quite an open project brief and asked to apply the theoretical aspects you’ve learned to an idea you might have. The end result is usually a project that’s personal to you, featuring your own creative input, while also academically quite progressive, and in this way you begin to build up this portfolio of ideas which even, one day, might be taken forward commercially (with the permission of the University), giving you plenty to talk about in conversations and interviews alike.

This isn’t just your dissertation or research projects, although these generally form the crux of such discussions – having spent so long on it last year, I still feel like I could talk for hours about my work on automated camera selection in footage of theatrical shows!

From first year assignments, where we were tasked with building a personal and professional website (although I’ve not quite updated it since!), to creative programming exercises including an app which produces solvable crosswords (a few late nights went into that one – I kept getting distracted by playing!), to research-based tasks like one I recently handed in (the design of a biometrics-based feature extractor and classifier), the ball is very often in your court.

The traditional celebratory ‘hand-in selfie’ my group took following our Group Design Project submission in January, featuring many bleary eyes!

It’s this sense of personal attachment which not only makes coursework assignments so interesting (particularly in terms of that link between course content and your own ideas), but which also drives you to want to achieve the best results you can – if more out of personal satisfaction than anything! Although not every coursework assignment follows this format, and you probably won’t enjoy every single one (I’ve always struggled with some of the heavier Maths-based content, for instance), it’s great to have such a variety, particularly in terms of the skills you pick up along the way.

And so, with only exams left to revise for before I face the real world, I’m glad to say I’m relatively proud of the portfolio I’ve amassed, and look forward to trying to present it in future interviews. That is, once I stop getting distracted by that crossword generator…!

Robin

Project presentations and birthday celebrations

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I recently handed in my BSc Biology Third Year Project which has a weight of two modules worth of credit towards my degree. Included in the final mark for your project are the marks you get for presenting your work to a panel of lecturers. Last week I had my Third Year Project presentation which, while feeling slightly nervous, I actually really enjoyed doing. It was fun to talk about the work I had been doing for the past year. The presentation had to be within a five minute limit which is surprisingly challenging. There’s an awful lot you could talk about regarding your project; from background knowledge, your methods, the results, statistical tests, the discussion and importance of your work, ideas for future research, and more! The list is long, so trying to organise everything I wanted to get across into the five minute limit took some preparation - but in the end I think I succeeded quite well.

While I was a little nervous, I think being President of a society for the past two years has really helped my oral communication skills. I think speaking in front of a group of people only gets easier with practise, although when talking to members of a society you’re not being marked which makes it much less intimidating but still great practise nonetheless.

The actual presentation went by in a flash. After speaking for five minutes we then had about five minutes of question time during which the panel could ask you about something they were particularly curious about. Your ability to answer the questions was also marked. Then it was all finished! Both my coursemate and I still felt a rush of adrenaline after we finished our presentations, and luckily we could get rid of the left over nerves and energy in a kickboxing session. This was a lot of fun, especially because we had missed the past two weeks because of all the deadlines.

After doing well in the presentation I really wanted to celebrate, but with additional deadlines and exams around the corner it’s really time to focus. However, on Friday it was birthday (with so much going on I had actually almost completely forgotten about it!). My housemates suggested we go out to eat to celebrate, which was fun. They also surprised me with a present and cake back at the house.

It’s been a while since we were all together because everyone has been so incredibly busy with third-year work. We also started talking about when each of us has our last exams and dates we’re planning on moving out. I’ve become really comfortable sharing a house with these girls for the past two years, so it’s going to feel really weird packing up all our stuff, cleaning the house and leaving it ready for a new group of students to move in.

In the end one of my housemates, who also is on the same course as me, managed to convince me to go on a night out to celebrate too. I guess seeing as we had both just done our presentations earlier in the week we felt it could be justified, and so I had a really fun birthday despite being very busy!

Me and my housemate/coursemate (who I’ll also be travelling around Europe with after exams), can’t wait!

Exams begin in just over a week, so revision mode is on. Knowing I’ll soon be preparing for a trip around Europe is a good incentive to work hard for a bit longer and then enjoy some free time to travel.

Kristin

The dreaded P-word

It is finally complete! I handed in my Masters thesis in the first week back after the Easter break and on Friday I had the corresponding Viva, which means that I can finally say that my project has come to a close.

A Viva is an interview in which academics (two in my case) scrutinise your final report and you are expected to defend your decisions, whilst showing off your wider knowledge of the theory behind your results. In the morning before it I had re-read my report several times (finding a few unfortunate typos, although none as bad as my partner’s 'lover mass black holes', instead of 'lower mass black holes') and had thought about how I might answer certain questions if they came up. Fortunately I was well prepared for the topics that arose and the thirty minutes seemed to whizz by! It’s a major relief to have that behind me – now I can turn my full attention to revision.

 

The print out of my final report I took to my Viva. 

Revision is something that every student knows all too well and although I wrote about it during the January exams, I wanted to discuss it again in today’s blog. It is my final set of University exams (and when I say set, I do mean set – I’ve never had fewer than three exams in a semester – my highest number has been five!), so I feel like I have enough experience to give some advice.

Those of you who have read my previous revision technique blog post will know that I have quite a peculiar method of revising. I pretend that I’m teaching the material to someone, either to an individual or to a whole class of imaginary students. It might sound weird, but just like my Space Plasma lecturer said this week, “If you can explain these concepts to a friend unaided, then you’ll do fine in the exam”.

Recently, I’ve even gone as far as investing in a whiteboard for my revision method; there’s just something inexplicably fun about using them regardless of your age and any way to improve the revision process is worth it in my book!

My imaginary class found 'Magnetospheric Size' enthralling! 

However, it was not the revision techniques I wanted to discuss, but more the ways to avoid the dreaded p-word: Procrastination. We all know the feeling; you’re half way through revising a chapter and suddenly you find that you have Facebook, Twitter and YouTube open on your laptop.

One of the ways I avoid procrastinating is not having my laptop turned on, unless I need it for work. This means it actually takes more effort to look at the sports news or my emails than it does to actually stay revising. If this means moving to the library or another quiet space, instead of your distraction-laden bedroom, then go for it – there’s plenty of revision-friendly spots on campus!

Another technique I use is to write a to-do list of manageable tasks that I know I can achieve in the day. Having five or so small and detailed tasks, for example ‘Revise Chapter 7’ or ‘Do questions 5-12’, instead of the open-ended task of ‘Do revision’, helps keep you focused and allows you to track your progress too.

A reward for revising hard all morning! 

The final step I take is to ensure there’s always something to look forward to when I’ve finished my to-do list. This can be video games, TV shows, a pack of fruit pastilles or, like I had at the weekend, a lunch time trip to Trago Lounge (a popular local café in Portswood) with my housemate. As long as you set yourself realistic goals and rewards, and minimise distractions, then revision should be a piece of cake!

I hope this helps and I wish you well with your exams and other deadlines!

James