Every year since I became a university student, I’ve had mixed feelings about the Xmas break.
On the one hand, there are lots of things I love about Christmas: catching up with family and friends, most people in a better mood than usual, good food, presents, lots of football!
Yet on the other hand, Christmas is a busy time of year for most students.
A lot of the academics in the Department of Criminology have encouraged students to take the festive season as an opportunity to rest, relax and recharge our brains. These are also the same academics that set the early January assessment deadlines!
This Xmas will be particularly difficult for me to relax given that I have just recovered from a week of tonsillitis. It was a grim time feeling like I had a frog in my throat and feeling so weak it was hard to leave the flat. Fortunately the doctor’s advice and the antibiotics have worked beautifully, but after a few days where my brain was not able to focus on essays, I have plenty to catch up on. Incidentally, this is why I never advise leaving assessments until the final week. Because had I been that ill in the week before the deadlines, I really would have been in trouble.
My advice would be to echo the advice from the academics and enjoy some time off…just not too much!
Last year I had three exams in January to prepare for. I must confess to completing a statistics mock exam on Christmas Day under exam conditions.
Fortunately this year my deadlines are for essays, not exams. As a result, I’ll probably take two days off from studying. But no more. I’m not going to study more than 5-6 hours on most days but I prefer steady progress to last minute panics. And then it will back onto the dissertation.
I choose to study hard. It’s my choice and I get immense satisfaction from pushing myself and getting good grades. And when the time comes, I do enjoying relaxing and having a nice break. It just probably won’t be over Xmas!
I wish you all and everyone at the University of Leicester a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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