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Martin Rogers

May 22nd, 2014

Free At Last: My Student Life

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Martin Rogers

May 22nd, 2014

Free At Last: My Student Life

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

As well as working for British Government @ LSE in the Department of Government I am also studying for an MSc in Social Policy Research. On Monday 16 June I finished my first year and I have to say I am delighted. I was so tired towards the end and in the weeks leading up to my coursework and exam it seemed like I never had any time to myself.

It has been around seven years since I was last in education and it was a shock to my system. The initial lectures were so enjoyable, and being back in education itself felt great but doing an essay in the third week brought me back down to earth with a bump. Poor marks were a feature of every piece of formative work that I submitted, only the very final one got above a pass. It was only much later on that I began to get the hang of what was required. Having been told so many times the importance of structure, coherence and answering the question it eventually began to sink in. now I make a strict plan and stick to it when I’m doing essays of any kind. I have received a provisional merit for my summative work and I’m very disappointed so I have made progress.

The exam prep was tough. I am pleased that I kept fairly sensible hours when studying for something like the advised the pattern of 9-11, 12-2, 3-5 then relax. I didn’t fall into bad habits like staying up all night and got a decent amount of sleep. Although practice is key to doing well, I spent relatively little time answering past papers and more on trying to learn as much as possible about the subjects then making flash cards and getting people to test me on their contents. Having done both I was fairly confident going into the exam. My greatest fear was that topics I had studied wouldn’t come up in the exam. To some extent this happened but I hope that I did myself justice and can now relax and enjoy the world cup.

What were yours strategies for the exams and how well do you think that you did?

About the author

Martin Rogers

Posted In: Students