An Incredible Feeling

There are some feelings and certain moments that you’ll remember for a very long time. Some of those moments, you might remember forever.

The identity of those moments is largely subjective. Obviously things such as certain birthdays, Xmases, weddings, parties and funerals are likely to be among many people’s most memorable moments. After that, special memories are likely to be dependent on your personal interests. These might be sporting events, concerts, holidays, awards ceremonies or work placements to name just five.

One moment that I will remember for a very long time is the satisfaction of handing in the paper copy of my dissertation two days ago. It was an emotional moment for two reasons.

For one, it was the culmination of a year’s hard work on the project and of three years at university. While the vast majority of it has been immensely positive, even enjoyable, to finally be able to let it go was a strange feeling. It was simultaneously a feeling of elation and grief.

The second reason why it was an emotional moment was the sheer relief of it being over. It was a more intense feeling than submitting the final piece of coursework from any other semester. The final semester has been so much tougher than the previous five, not only for the volume of work but also for the pressure, as my final two essays combined with the dissertation is worth 40% of the overall degree classification.

Now, two days after submitting my dissertation, I feel exceptionally good. Although waiting for results is never the best feeling in the world, it is nice to live in a world without deadlines.

However, the submission of my dissertation does not mark the end of my time at Leicester. I still have graduation to look forward to and I’ll still be blogging until the end of July.