Understanding your timetable
A realistic Guide to life at UCLan - written by students!
By Ella Tacey, 1st year, BA (Hons) Marketing and Public Relations
When coming to university, one of the things you may find difficult is the amount of independent work that is required. I found it particularly strange that when you first receive your timetable, you are only in for around 10-15 hours each week. First you may think (as I did) that this means late nights and long lie-ins. But in reality this may be late nights in the 24 hour library!
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of opportunities for socialising too, but when you have deadlines, you will need to put a lot of time into research and assignments outside of the lectures and seminars. This could be independently or meeting up with others for group assignments.
As well as your official assignment deadlines, another important but time consuming task you need to do is the reading around your subject. When first starting your course, you may be asked to purchase core books, and I would definitely advise doing this. I got most of mine second hand from Amazon for a much cheaper price, and will be able to sell them again once I’ve finished with them. Alternatively, there is a book shop on campus.
I was asked to read books and journals about my subject by my lecturers. At first I just used to read bits from the books I had bought, and didn’t do much other research, which meant I sometimes found the lectures harder to follow. Lecturers often have to cover quite complex issues in just a 50 minute presentation, so don’t have time to go into every detail. Now I am more self-motivated and have learnt that you end up with a better understanding if you make sure you understand the topic before the lecture, and if you have any queries they can be answered in the more personal seminars.
Finally, another thing I found hard to get used to when first starting the course at university was reading academic writing. One tip I can give is to read as much as you can, such as academic journals, so you will become more used to it and your assignment writing will also improve considerably.
