One of the best things about being a student is when you’re not actually being a student.  With a month at Christmas and a month at Easter followed by three months at summer you have plenty of time to do the travelling, internships and paid-work that you struggle to fit into your busy term time schedule.  After my first summer as a student was made up of the usual train travels around Europe (unexpectedly the highlight was Milan) this summer is turning out to be a little more, ordinary.   Two main things have occupied my time…

Hong Kong Efforts

The first of these mind occupying, time demanding activities has been the organising of my imminent study abroad in Hong Kong next semester.  Many students begin their study at Newcastle quite open to the adventure of studying abroad.  The faculty offers a wide range options such as Copenhagen, United States and Hong Kong for unilinguals such as myself, to the likes of France and Germany that require you to know their respective languages.  However, these interested numbers start to dwindle as the reality of costs, academic and social risks and the sheer preparation that is required becomes apparent.  I am someone who has managed to persevere, and after I have battled through the obstacles of visas, accommodation and travels I will hopefully be rewarded.  The benefits of studying abroad are immense.  The opportunity to make friends from all over the world (HK is an international university), learn about a different culture and study at another well-regarded university.  It also looks great on your CV, leading me to my second thing…

Careers Chances

After finishing second year I am feeling increasingly worried that my answer to the question, “what do you want to do?” is still “I don’t know.”  The answer of which I came to at age 11 when I realised a career as a clown was not for me.  Therefore, I have spent a lot of my summer thus far searching the Internet for graduate jobs determined to be ahead of the game.  However, both the beauty and the dilemma of a politics degree is that it doesn’t close any doors (sorry for cliché).  So, being a well-rounded individual with the obvious liberal reluctances to go-into-business I am left envying the pre-determined destiny of the marketing student.  Nevertheless, I will continue my Google searches with the hope of finding dream employment in a business which aligns with my moral compass, pays extremely well and resides overlooking the Seine, Paris.

Have a good summer.

Revision Technique: From A-Levels to University

At the start of GCSE’s I really didn’t know what was the best way for me to revise. At school we had lots of study skills workshops that taught me how to organise my time on each subject, but when it actually came to revising I still didn’t know what to do. Should I just read through my notes or make secondary notes and read through them? I began by making secondary notes by hand on small sheets of brightly coloured card. I used all sorts of coloured pens as well for highlighting different things, but by the end of it I couldn’t even revise from my notes they were too confusing. Not only that but it took forever to hand write everything up.

By the time A-Levels came around I knew that I needed to type up my notes on the computer. Then once you’ve printed them off you can read through them easily and highlight the important things as you go. It took me awhile to make sure this was the best way for me to revise, but its quick and easy and you can easily change the font of the text, italicize words, make headlines bold and use loads of bullet points!

This way of revising was a success; and I base this on the results I achieved at A-Level. So when the Summer Exam period started in the first year of UNI I was prepared, and instantly started typing up my notes. The exams went well, so I did the exact same revision for my 2013 January exams just gone.