The overall university experience has been widely changed due to COVID-19 over the past few months – whether that’s first year students having a different experience than they initially expected due to chan

ges to government guidelines or, in my case, as a third year student, completing what can be seen as your most important year at university. This is all still likely to change as the latest month long lockdown has ended and transition into second semester in 2021 and whilst, despite the ever-changing landscape, it is more important than ever not to put too much pressure on yourself to finish your work. Whilst my most recent blog looked into what is happening now, in this blog, I will be looking ahead at what’s to come in the next semester.

Personal experience: 

For me, the first lockdown presented more challenges than now when it came to managing my work due to the fact many of my projects quickly changed over the course of a few weeks and that unfamiliarity made it more challenging when it came to planning out my work for the coming weeks. However, starting back in the third year made it less of a challenge for a variety of reasons e.g. being back living in Bournemouth rather than completing the course from home and being back quickly helped me figure out the best way to manage my work without stressing too much. Planning out each day of the week (choosing what work I would do on certain days) proved to be the most effective method for me as it meant I could easily spread out my work depending on the deadline and make sure I was still giving myself breaks in between. Having breaks in between work is always an effective way to lower any stress you may have about your work whilst allowing you to come up with your own unique structure for completing your work.

The second semester will feature the same blended style of teaching that was used in the first semester for most courses at the university with my main opportunities to go on campus coming from my camera workshops, which I know is going to change in the coming weeks due to me completing my first units of the year and begin moving back into the production side of my course.

Support:

There are a wide range of services offered by the university when it comes to support for students with the biggest one for me being my mental health. Being in lockdown had me thinking about my mental health very early on as we were all in a very unfamiliar situation with little idea of how to correctly navigate it but I was quickly able to find ways to help support this and this mainly came through my course mates. I knew all my course mates were in the same boat and that it would be affecting everyone differently but my support came through a mental health business started by one of my course mates called OwnHappy whose primary goal is to help support people through this time with products like positive affirmation cards and more.

This is something that helped me through the first semester of third year and this will continue over into second semester as will my structure for managing my work as my projects allow me to choose their overall format which makes it easier to plan ahead if you choose the one that is best suited for you.

Find out more

Student support services