Study Like You Mean It

Two degrees from Cambridge, up to various nonsense | No reblogs and I rarely post but the inbox is always open ♥

[study-like-you-mean-it]

2024 Goal Setting for People Who Used to be Studyblr Queens and are Now Just Muddling Through Adult Life

I know you, you know me. I've had this account since I was freshly 16 and I'm 23 (and a half) now, and I can guarantee there's loads of you in the same boat right now.

Where did I go? What did I do? I finished my Master's Degree and realised (with some trepidation) at the end of it that I'd achieved everything that was on my list of things to achieve ever, and I didn't really have a plan on what I was going to do, so for what may have been the first time in my life I just...winged it. Started measuring progress according to how I felt about it. And it worked! Lots of good has come out of it so let me suggest some goal setting approaches to help if you're in a similar position (and given the studyblr -> chaos pipeline I might suggest there's at least a few people this might help)

Point 1 - Don't set yourself academic goals

"But Study Like You Mean It, I always set academic goals!" I hear you say. I appreciate the irony of my username in relation to this. Point is, you're not in academia anymore. You need to stop goal setting like you're in academia, and the easiest way to do this is to stop setting academic goals.

"But I like the pursuit of knowledge!" I hear you counter. So do I, but if you've just come out of a hothouse academic setting, you *really* need to consider who you're goal setting for. Do you like the idea of being a polyglot by the end of the year? Sure, fine, whatever, but consider who you're goal setting for. Do you want to be a polyglot because you like the process of learning languages, or because you want to show to others that you know languages? It sounds silly, but you're not working to a grade anymore, and it's absolutely essential that you reflect on why you like doing academic things. This doesn't apply to everyone, but I would kick off the process of self-reflection on this (because you know the Studyblr types are most likely guilty of performative learning) by refusing to set yourself academic goals.

If you don't hit a yardstick, what's the worst that will happen?

(nothing- the answer is nothing and you need to start getting comfortable with that)

Point 2 - Set Process-Based Goals

Building on the last point, if you want to have achieved something by the end of the year, how can you frame it in a way that's definitely not you trying to put down a point to show to others that you've improved, and instead internalise your sense of progress? Maybe the goal you set is "by the end of the year, I want to feel like I understand internalised growth and progress", and you'll know at the end of the year when you self-reflect if you've succeeded in that.

Otherwise, set a process-based goal. If you want to get better at something, but know you're guilty of holding yourself to externalised yardsticks, set yourself a goal that's about the process rather than the result. Scary, I know. For example, say you want to start playing a sport. If you go in without a process-based goal, you could end up saying to yourself "I want to put myself in a position where I qualify for a team two leagues above by the end of the season," which is a SMART* goal, but incredibly determined by outside reflections on your own ability, and very end-result focused. There's a time and a place for goals like this, but if you're coming off a high-intensity academic environment, I would argue that it's not the right place. Instead, what about "I will show up every week and be positive about the fact that I'm not perfect"? It's about the learning process, and I think post-university a lot of people fall out of love with the actual learning process, and become too mired in results.

*specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound

Point 3 - What happens if you don't hit your goal?

I love asking this question to people who've come out of academic environments.

Literally what's going to happen if you can't meet the goal that you've set for yourself when you set an end-goal focused goal?

Nothing!!!!!

It's so freeing. Embrace it! There are no time bounds on learning, so enjoy the learning! There's no exam to pass, no professors to wow, no applications to get accepted. It's just you learning how to be you, and remembering why you love to get good at things!

Part 4 - Habits =/= Goals

This one maybe is a bit tricky to explain. It's the difference between "I'm going to get into the practice of reading on my commute when I can" and "I must finish 10 books this year by reading on my commute when I can". One of them is about introducing something new into your life because it makes you feel good, and the other one is about setting limits on that because you feel you need to control the way that you enjoy things (this comes from academia putting constraints on learning, etc.).

Be patient with yourself, for goodness' sakes. Get into the habit and enjoy the process, don't automatically find ways to be masochistic about it.

My Goal Setting Approach

Now I've clarified the kinds of goals to set in this new and scary world, I'll run through my approach to implement them. First thing to note is I like setting lots of goals, but then those all get broken into little habits that I can focus on in my day to day, as well as timeline-less tasks to accomplish when I've got the time free.

I start with areas I'd like to improve myself in (again, not as a discipline thing, but towards the vision that I might be a more rounded and enriched person because of it):

Personal - how can I become more introspective/calm/mindful?

Financial - how can I become more fiscally responsible now I'm an adult?

Social - how do I make time for others?

Work - what does progress at work over this year look like?

Sport - this can be replaced by whatever your main hobby is

Intellectual - how can I enrich myself and learn about things that I'm interested in?

I won't run through all of these, but I'll create some examples:

Domain: Financial - how can I become more fiscally responsible now I'm an adult?

General points on this: I can save more money, I can improve my credit score, I can pay off some loans

Habits: for the first, I can maybe aim to save 20% of my takehome, by putting 10% in at the start of the month, and trying to put 10% in at the end if I've got enough, and I can set up the timelineless task of opening a high interest-rate savings account for money that I don't need for emergency access; for the second, I can set the timelineless task of setting up a credit card, and get into the habit of paying for my groceries with it; for the third, I can sit down and look at how much of my takehome I can dedicate to this, and then get into the habit of paying off a sustainable amount

Now, I have the timelineless tasks fo getting a credit card, opening a new savings account, and sitting down and looking at my loans, and then I have the two habits of tucking bits of money away and paying off some loans. Note that there's nothing that's made it too urgent (which I admit is a privilege) and there's nothing that tells me I'm a bad person for not being able to do it. Another example:

Domain: intellectual - how can I enrich myself and learn about things that I'm interested in?

General points on this: I would like to read more broadly, I would like to improve my French, I would like to understand more about world events

Habits: for the first, I can read on my commute when I can get a seat on the train, as I have half an hour each way so I can use that time to read. I can set the timelineless task of exploring the kinds of books that I'd like to read; for the second, I can choose to consume more French media when I feel like I have the mental capacity. I also have to speak French at work, so I want to get into the habit of not cowarding out and switching to English (scary but doable); for the last, I can get into the habit of watching the evening news (so it's contained within a time slot and I'm not being overwhelmed by the 24h news cycle) and I can set the timelineless task of picking up a copy of a magazine like the economist once in a while to get a deeper understanding.

So the habits to get into are reading on my commute, choosing to speak more in French, and watching the news when I can; the tasks are maybe picking up a copy of a magazine and coming up with a reading list.

The whole point of this approach is it breaks your bigger goals into a timeline-free to-do list, and then a list of small habits that you can get into. The good news is that there's no punishment for failure! If I want to listen to the Bongo's Bingo Greatest Hits playlist on the train one morning instead of reading about the modern history of Cambodia, nobody's going to come along and tell me off for not being serious enough, or clever enough, or "academic" enough about my approach to life. The to-do list aspect I find immensely helpful, as often I struggle to write larger-level to-do lists when I'm in the middle of the year, because I don't have the same kind of clarity over the types of progress I want to make when I'm in the middle of things.

Anyway, I hope this is useful, and a good counterpoint to the mindset that everyone who's ever been near Studyblr has. Learning now is only for enjoyment, so enjoy that aspect! Live your life! Understand that the process of betterment is all about enriching your personal sphere and nothing about other people because (drumroll) literally nobody else cares! In a good way! Nobody cares that you've not mastered Polish in 3 weeks or read the entire academic output of Montaigne in a week! And it's cool if you have, but the person you are is more important, and freeing yourself from external yardsticks is so so crucial!

Love to anyone who read this far ♥

[study-like-you-mean-it]

hello!! this is absurdly specific but i'm a first year linguistics undergraduate at cambridge this year, and i was wondering if you have any insights into the exam for li2 (structures and meanings) - i'm currently pretty disheartened after receiving a supervisor report which noted in one line that i was hard-working, great to teach, and my technical work for syntax was generally good, but then spent the rest of the report talking about all the ways the syntax essay i wrote was terrible! is essay-writing an important part of the exam for this paper? i can't currently access any past papers to find out, and it'd be helpful to know if this is something which i can put behind me and move on with my life, or whether i need to stick with it and figure out the key to writing syntax essays!

Hello!! These are my favourite kind of asks to receive I love helping first year Cam linguists 😍

Firstly, there is no reason to worry about supo reports from first term! My first supo reports were kind of similar, and often it takes more than 8 weeks to get used to the Cambridge essay style (frankly, it took me until the end of second year Lent term for it to really click- I got a pretty ok 2.i in first year and just treated the whole degree as progression towards peaking in third year which I did)

Full disclosure, I had exactly the same issues with Li2. I was great at the trees and getting how the things fit together, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to write the essays. I also did my first year entirely pre-pandemic, so this advice may not be entirely up-to-date with the new exam format (we voted to keep the pandemic-style assessment of two week exams where you can choose which order to hand in papers because it's SO much better than doing it all from memory and is a much fairer assessment of your research skills and intelligence)

When I went through all the past papers that I practiced on before my exam, every single one asked a question about X-bar versus PS-rules, so I just made sure I had a really strong response on that and prayed it would come up in the exam (spoiler- it did, and there's only so many foundational syntax questions you can ask so chances are it'll come up). If you have new-format exams you won't need to memorise it, but it'll help a lot if you have a really strong set of points that you can weave together to write a good essay on it- don't be afraid to ask your supervisor for help, because the worst that they can say is no!! For genuine help, and I'm sure John has tried to get everyone to take a look at this already, the essay writing toolkit can be quite useful. My way of improving was having the balls to ask the people in my supo groups who were better than me if I could have a look at their essays, which I did all the way up to final year- completely terrifying and intimidating, but everyone wants academic validation and so is normally completely happy to help you out. Overall, though, especially this term, just practicing writing essays for supervisions will help more than anything!

To answer your question properly, no- none of the first year papers are majority essays. When you get on to Part IIA/IIB, you'll get entirely essay papers (I think Phonology was the only one that I had that had a data question, not including the Phonetics practicals), but for first year you get data/technical questions (so like "draw trees for these structures" and "point out any elements of semantic or pragmatic interest" for Li2). My college kid said that during the pandemic she only had one of these plus an essay (but this was when we were all being prepped for traditional exams and the we got locked down), and pre-pandemic I had two plus an essay, so I'm not sure what they're doing now in terms of the number of data questions since everyone's being prepped for the new format, but the papers will all be at least 50% data, if not 67%. Remember also that you have a full 6 weeks in Easter term to practice essay writing and style- for the new format for the time being, just make sure everything you're reading and learning is organised well so you can access it during the exam, and make sure you've got a list of extra reading that you can sprinkle in to evaluate or use as counterpoints to the traditional stuff (I can't be massively useful for syntax bc I firmly left that in first year but I have some good stuff particularly for phonetics!) And general tip- if you buckle down to revise for the whole of the Easter holidays, you'll run out of stuff to do and you'll lose motivation when it matters most- unlike school the 'study leave' part is the whole term, so give yourself a break over Easter!!

If you can't find the past papers on Moodle, they're in the Faculty of MML Past Papers rather than on the individual Moodle pages, if that helps. If they've not made them available yet I can try and dig up some old questions for you from my folders!!

Also, as a final point- I think if you enjoy the technical work of Li2 but not the rest so much, don't do Li9- even the true syntacticians generally disliked it (some wrote syntax dissertations but that was a minority of the li9-takers). I was in that position, and was considering Li9, and thankfully didn't take it- I realised that because my strengths were in this kind of technical side, my best fits were phonetics, computational, and semantics/pragmatics. Li9 is suuuuper theoretical and complicated and Li2 syntax is enough to understand the syntax needed for any other field (e.g. computational or psychology).

(I did Li1/2/3/4/5 (general ling in IIB)/6 (phonetics)/7 (phonology)/10 (semprag)/16 (psych)/18 (computational) and Fr13 (like Li4 but for French) over the course of my undergrad, did my diss on the phonetics of empathetic speech, and now I'm a computational phonetician looking specifically at sincerity detection in empathetic speech using machine learning- much more sciency than theoretical syntax and much more grounded in practical work (although I chose to add in bits of semprag because I'm super into the philosophy/semantics/pragmatics of emotions in speech)- if you have any questions on the papers I did or anything more generally, do ask! I'm always willing to help out 😊)

Hope this helped a bit!

(also, I'm no pro at syntax, but I wrote hundreds of essays over the course of my degree, so I can take a look if you need help with structure and stuff! dm me and I can give you my crsid)

[study-like-you-mean-it]

New Year's Resolutions for People who Already Have Too Much on their Plate

Something I've learned over the past few years, but particularly this year, is that I have a habit of taking on way too many projects when they don't seem to be that time-consuming, and then getting pulled under completely when they ramp up. Knowing the motivation of the people who follow my posts (big hello to all my baby Oxbridge undergrads from someone who's now out the other side and doing a Cambridge MPhil), I thought some resolutions for people who don't have the time to take on any more habits or projects might be of use!

Take time every day to be in the moment It's really easy to get stuck in a routine where you get up, power through the things you need to do, stick yourself into work, eat your lunch as quickly as possible, and then go back into work without giving yourself a time to just be. Find a moment during the day, and just take that moment to completely disconnect from everything and just focus on that one thing. Some people really enjoy doing this at mealtimes- I personally can't do this because I really don't like just focusing on eating for various reasons, so I choose instead to just make sure that every time I shower I just focus on the ritual of getting myself clean, and then moisturising and taking care of my hair. It's not because I'm particularly bothered about my appearance, but because showering won't go faster if I'm thinking about work or letting my thoughts wander. Sometimes (not always) I also just think about a handful of things I'm grateful for while I'm doing this, to remind myself that although I'm constantly chasing new goals, I've achieved a hell of a lot along the way. Have an experiment for when a good moment is to do this in your own routine (either when showering, eating, exercising, etc)

Stop adding things to your to do list! I'm absolutely criminal about this- when something new crops up, I just go "oh I'll add it to the list of things I need to get done today," and I never end up getting everything on my list done. Either have a master to-do list and a separate daily to-do list (it's important that it's separate!) where you take things off the master list to do each day, or just put that thing to do on another day and keep yourself to a maximum number of things to do. If you finish your list, great! Enjoy the free time. You don't have to be doing things nonstop to be worth something, and often setting boundaries like this will help you be more productive.

Set yourself working hours It doesn't matter if you have an actual job or not- I started doing this when I was 19 as a second year by giving myself a starting time that accounted for either getting back from training or having a small lie in, and it meant that I actually had time to do the things that I valued- now I'm just doing a master's thesis, I can also give myself weekends off, which is massively helpful for my motivation during the week

Make that date with that friend You know you've been putting off loads of coffees or drinks or whatever with individual friends because you're too busy with work. Newsflash (which I think everyone has learned or will learn the hard way): if you say you're always busy, people will stop asking. Likewise, if you spend your entire time waiting to be asked, you'll find yourself disappointed- what is the person on the other end doing but reaching out instead of waiting? Don't be passive- do it, even if it takes an hour of your time. If someone you've been meaning to see asks to hang out, make it a priority. Your life is just as important as your work, and you need to feed both soul and mind (not to be too cliché)

Sort your projects into tiers Previously, I've been very guilty of assuming that everything I do is equally important, but that's never been the case. Coursework submitted for a grade, for example, is more important than work that you've just submitted for a supervision that will be marked but not submitted for a grade. Things shift priority, but having a mental tier list is super useful in terms of thinking about where you're going to be allocating your time and energy. For my thesis, I've broken it down into a group of things (literature review, experiments, stats, machine learning, writeup) that are shifting priority- experiments was super important for me to get finished before Christmas so the lit review took a backseat, but now I've finished them I can focus back on the lit review. I've also got my side-projects in a tier as well- my tutoring job rose a bit over the holidays because I needed a bit of cash, and so did one of the two books I'm editing because we needed to prepare to go to print; now both are done and any further work on those is back on the lowest tier. Not everything needs your whole heart and soul thrown into it at all times.

Find a non-competitive hobby I think busy people are absolutely the most guilty of finding ways to spend their free time that involve pushing themselves to their absolute limits, just not for work. I've been rowing since 2018 now, and my focus for it has always been to push myself and compete, and that's fine, but it can't be the only thing I do with my free time. Choral singing is something I also do in my free time, and from 2011-2018 I was competitive as I was being prepped to potentially go to a conservatoire. The current choir I'm in gives me space to grow and improve, but I'm not pushing myself to my limit every week- I enjoy the new pieces, but ultimately I just like being musical. Same goes for the odd times I play the cello when my college orchestra or a student musical is looking for a spare cellist- it's not something I'm looking necessarily to be the best at, it's just something I enjoy. On top of that, there's the things I do without the intention of ever trying to improve (with the assumption that the improvements will just come the more I do them)- this category includes cooking nice things, doing crosswords, and running. I'm not built as a runner- I have terrible knees and I'm built like someone who spends their spare time carrying around boats. I'm not looking to race anyone, and I'm not really even looking to get faster- I just enjoy getting out and running sometimes. Point is, you can have things outside of work that you compete in, but you need things that you enjoy doing and can improve in, as well as things you're not good at but enjoy. Don't let everything be ruled by perfectionism (sometimes it's ok to be crap at things!)

My mantra for this year is going to be how you do anything is how you do everything - think about what this means for you, and what you'd like to achieve. Do everything deliberately, and make sure you leave space for yourself in there.

Happy New Year!

[study-like-you-mean-it]

hey what college are you at at Cambridge? X

Hey! I've actually removed any explicit mentions of which college I'm at because a couple years ago I had someone from another college try and track me down and it was really uncomfortable and they were really creepy about it and sent some pretty explicit messages (same reason I've removed my first name from my bio), but there are some pretty obvious nods in some of my older posts :)

[study-like-you-mean-it]

Hello! I'm interested in bettering my handwriting and I enjoyed your post on the subject. Would you ever consider releasing an alphabet sample of your handwriting? I don't know exactly what I'd like my end-result handwriting to look like, but I love yours and it seems like a great place to start. Thank you!

Bit rushed, but here you go! Capitals, individual letters, then how they go into my print and cursive writing (I know things like the f and p and j vary a lot, but that's just how it is)

[study-like-you-mean-it]

Hey, do you have any tips for those planning on applying for master's at Cambridge/Oxford? Majorly from the perspective of an international student? Thanks xx

(I'm really really sorry for how late this reply is, I hardly check my Tumblr anymore because I'm so busy and inbox notifications just don't show up for some reason)

-however-

I am about to start my MPhil in Linguistics at Cambridge (yay), so I have some tips (from someone who also did their undergrad at Cambridge):

The application process is draining (seriously I've never been so tired by anything ever), so set more time aside to do it than you think you need!

In a similar vein, make sure you have a timeline for when you're going to get things done, and make sure that timeline leaves you about a week before the deadline so that you can deal with any emergency situations

Remember that at postgrad it's less about the uni and more about the supervisor, so if you find that the uni doesn't contain the academic research you're interested in, then don't apply. I basically couldn't have applied to Oxford as they didn't do the kind of research that I was interested in (it was more traditional in its approach), so I stuck with Cambridge (although obviously I know Cambridge much better so that was an advantage)

Writing sample: If your course asks for one of these, I recommend finding the piece of work you were proudest of, and spending a good few days polishing it- the people looking at it want to see how you communicate complex ideas and concepts. The sample doesn't have to be directly related to the Thesis/Project you're applying for, but at least tangentially related is useful

Start emailing potential supervisors over summer if you are applying in the winter: this is partly because supervisors get super busy over term time so are worse at replying to emails, partly because you come off super organised, and partly because if you haven't been at the institution before, it will take some shopping around to find the right supervisor. I had the good fortune that my undergrad supervisor was happy to supervise my MPhil, but if I were to come at this from an outside perspective, I would go through faculty lists and email people, stating my intent to study there, how I noticed they were interested in xyz, and how I'd like to do a master's in something within that (be clear about your project aims). Don't be disheartened if they say no- ask for other suggestions! You can also shoot an email to a PhD who's supervised by the person you're interested in and see from them if they think it's worth asking.

References: both references should be academic, and ideally from those who have supervised you. My first reference was my Director of Studies, who was in charge of my academic progress at uni, and the second was my lab supervisor from my second year, since he taught me a lot of skills I needed for the MPhil project. If you have a dissertation supervisor, I recommend asking them (I learned the hard way that I should have asked the guy who's my MPhil supervisor because he knew me and could recommend me, but I got the place so that's alright in the end)

Interview: from my experience (and anecdotes from friends who applied for other courses), these are much more low key than undergrad, and they want to know more about your research contribution and what you think you'll learn- mine lasted literally 10 minutes, a friend's lasted 15 mins, etc. However, it's worth preparing with 'what will I learn' in terms of topics and skills, as well as 'how can I contribute to the research of this institution'

Remember that a Master's is often seen as a gateway to a PhD, so have in mind how you could expand on your research beyond just your master's, which helps contextualise your research contribution further

Research proposal: there are lots of very useful online guides for this, so definitely do some research on structure before you write! Be clear in the proposal about the aims of the project (these can shift in conversation with your supervisor but you need initial aims), and also where this research could be expanded. I included a few sources and a bibliography, as well as my name and email address in the footnote just to be professional. Make sure it fits the length requirement, and make sure that it looks presentable. Also- this step takes so much longer than you think, so really prepare in advance.

Hope this helps anyone considering applying for a master's!

[study-like-you-mean-it]

18.01.21 || Scenes of Academia

[study-like-you-mean-it]

Still stuck on resolutions? Here are 21 easy habits to try in 2021!

Obviously don’t aim for all of these, but these are some little productive habits that’ll help as we move into 2021 :)

Make your bed every morning

Drink water when you wake up

Make sure you eat breakfast every day

Eat a piece of fruit every day

No working on your bed

Read a couple pages of something for fun every day

Stretch for 10mins daily

Write a line a day about how things went

Set a time to stop working every day

Make sure you take breaks while working

Never buy something online the first time you find it- give yourself a few days and see if you still want it

Buy second hand where you can

Plan your grocery shopping

Tidy your desk when you stop working!

Don’t leave your clothes on the floor

Do your washing up as you go

Make your to do list the night before

Plan your outfit the night before

Smile at yourself in the mirror when you see one

If you don’t do sports normally, put some time aside to get outside (even for a walk) a couple of times a week

Seek out local businesses and choose them over chains where you can

Here’s to a productive, happy, and healthy 2021!

[study-like-you-mean-it]

Hi! I recently created this blog, hoping to help people applying to university this year! I was wondering if you’d maybe be willing to share this ask, in case any of your followers could benefit from it? Thank you so much!

Of course! Sorry for the slow response to this (I’ve been in the middle of diss work and master’s applications lol)

To my followers: if you’re still looking at university applications and things, or if you’re in the year below and starting to think about applications, please check this page out! Applying to things is hard enough, but with less guidance than usual this year, it’s particularly difficult. Same goes for my blog here- I’m a bit busy with final year and research and things (hence the long stretches of silence) but when I do pick up I’m always keen to help! Hopefully most of your quick questions will be answered with a look at this page though!

Also, proofreading (especially someone who doesn’t know you) is super useful, so even if you feel a bit silly, please do take advantage of this! It’s an invaluable service and can help a lot!

[study-like-you-mean-it]

hi! i just wanted to ask if u have any tips with writing a level history essays (if u can remember) because i’m stuck on a grade C/B and struggling! thank u

Hi! Sorry for the slightly late reply! I had exactly the same problem in history for the longest time (literally until the week before my exam) so here goes!

Plan your essay, but always make sure that you have an overarching argument and that every topic sentence reflects the point you’re going to make and how it relates to the overall argument

Chuck in as many facts to prove your point as possible. I literally made a billion flashcards with dates and statistics and went through them as many times a possible before the exam. Make way too many flashcards. If you have too many, then chances are you’ll have enough facts for your essay

e.g. “[Event X] demonstrates that towards the end of their rule, [leader] was showing weakness, as [statistic 1]. Although [statistic 2] contradicts this image, the reality was [analysis of statistic 2 that shows it an be interpreted negatively], further demonstrated by the fact that...”

Remember the type of essay you need for the exam! There are papers where a thematic understanding is required (e.g. comparing one leader to another), where a super-factual essay is required (for me this was my shortest paper, and it discussed specific events in detail), and some where both is required (I needed this for my British history paper but I don’t know what board you do)

If you’re doing the essay as homework, it’s frustrating but really worth the time to go through and edit and add facts where possible. It’s also useful to make flashcards based on the information you used in the essay, or note which facts are coming up the most frequently in your essays (because chances are it’s an easy fact you can drop into the exam)

I touched on this a little bit in the second point, but always make sure to critically analyse what the facts mean! It’s all well and good to know and insert loads of facts, but they need to be situated in context: if the average living space for a peasant in Russia decreased over Communist rule, what does this say about how effective Communist treatment of citizens in villages/cities was, and (most importantly) how can this be used in favour of your point in the essay?

Just keep practicing! Before my A-Levels I think I wrote one past paper question per paper per week for history, because I knew it was my weakest subject, and tortured my teachers with “please could you look at this and tell me how I’m doing?” but it worked! The worst a teacher can say is no, which they’re unlikely to a lot of the time because they also want you to do well, and even if they do say no, it means you can either go back through it yourself and be really critical of what you’ve written, or give it to someone else in your class whom you trust to be honest and they can look through it!

I hope this was a little bit helpful (and not just a rehashing of the things you’ve been told in school)

Good luck with it! ♥

[study-like-you-mean-it]

hi! i really love your blog it inspires me to study lol. speaking of, i’ve been wanting to study some topics without the stress and pressure of school. do you have any obscure topics or people you like to study outside of school on your own time?

Hi! Thank you so much! Sorry for the slow reply ://

I’m kind of keen on studying a little bit of everything, if I’m honest. Outside of studying linguistics, I’m teaching myself Irish, keeping my level of French up through literature, currently also catching up on my English literature (with a list of “books I should have read but never got round to”). I also, when possible, try and get to grips with different parts of history that I didn’t study in school (e.g. the Romanovs, pre-French Cambodia, British India, etc.). Obviously my degree is pretty demanding, but the holidays are long and when I’m not working (especially over summer) I like taking the time to expand my knowledge of things beyond the remit of my degree!

[study-like-you-mean-it]

hi!! i absolutely love your blog and it always motivates me to do my homework. i’m graduating high school in june and i was wondering if you had any tips for preparing for the first year of university? i know which courses i want to take but i’m a little anxious abt meeting ppl, being on campus, stuff like that? 💕💕

Hi! I’m so sorry for not being able to reply sooner- I had an extremely busy year and had to go on hiatus for a bit ://

With regards to the first year of uni, if you’re not used to living away from home it can be a really scary experience. Just remember that your family is always a phone call away! That being said, though, everyone is in the same situation which makes it a lot easier to approach people and get to know them. The running joke is that you lose all your social skills in fresher’s week and it’s totally acceptable to just walk up to someone and introduce yourself, and as such it’s easier to make a couple friends, or find a few friendly faces that you’ll see every day.

Even just talking to the person sitting next to you in your first lecture will ensure that there’s at least one face you know around campus, which can do a lot to ease any concerns that you or they may have coming into this big new environment.

Beyond that, I’d honestly recommend taking up a club or sport or other extra-curricular. I took up rowing because they had really good (and free) beginner’s training, and because a lot of people at my uni row on a friendly level, and I also joined a choir, and as a result there’s a few groups of people that I see at least twice (for choir) but up to 8 (for rowing) times a week, and even though I’m not super close with all of them, I’ve found some really good friends in there, and it’s allowed me to have a strong network of people and an interest in common (and something other than my degree to take my mind off things!)

Overall, I think the biggest takeaway is that everyone will be in the same situation, and will be really open to meeting new people, and the pool of people to find friends in is far larger and more diverse than you will have experienced before, which is good in every respect!

Best of luck! ♥

[study-like-you-mean-it]

14.3.2020 || Love in the time of Coronavirus

Spending more time avoiding going out hasn't changed much, if I'm honest, bar giving myself more chance to work and to think about how if this virus hits Cambridge and I have to go home, I will have to say goodbye to a lot of people forever because they will be graduating or going on their years abroad. There will be a lot of difficult decisions to make soon about my relationships with certain people, I fear.

Even though there isn't a confirmed case here, events are mostly cancelled, people are being sent home, and (most annoyingly) people are stockpiling food and medications and sanitary supplies, which makes it difficult for everyone else- I, for example, need ibuprofen due to a sports injury and can't currently find any anywhere.

It's a strange time to be living in, and it feels like things are about to come to an end, not in an apocalyptic way, but as if you're standing on the edge of a cliff, watching the sun set, but not knowing exactly how long you have before it dips below the horizon.

[study-like-you-mean-it]

07.01.2020 || I've started a new way of working this year, which involves saying "I'm going to do this many hours of work today," and then setting off the stopwatch on my phone so that over the course of the day I hit that number of hours. It also means that I can easily pause it when I'm procrastinating, which also allows me to see what percentage of my time I'm wasting (currently I've spent 77% of the time I've set aside for work actually working today lol), as well as seeing how long it actually takes me to do a task I've put down on my to do list!

[study-like-you-mean-it]

hey!! i just saw ur in second yr doing linguistics at cambridge and that's my absolute dream course. can you please tell me in general what the course is like and what you do and don't like about it? thanks a bunch and i hope u have a wonderful day!!

Quite honestly, I love everything about my course! Obviously it’s tough like all Cam subjects bc the workload is high but if you enjoy it then you barely notice! I also really love the fact that in first year you do a foundation bit of everything so you know what kind of linguistics you want to do in second and third year- I went in thinking I’d be really keen on sociology and history but turns out I care more about psychology and computational linguistics, which I have the chance to do papers on this year. It’s also a really small course, so you get to know everyone who’s studying with you, and I’ve made some really close friends from all over as a result and I’m really happy about it!

 If you have any specific questions about the application and interview process, don’t be afraid to pop me a message and I can absolutely help you out!

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Hi! I love your blog. I was just wondering what resources you use (apps, techniques, books, etc.) to learn languages. I’m interested in learning French, Greek, and Latin but I don’t know where to start. Thanks in advance!

Hey! Sorry for the late replies- it’s been a bit manic recently. I personally like to use Duolingo as a starting point for most languages, since it’s a good way of building up the foundations of a language. Obviously, it’s not completely sufficient, and people fall into the trap of thinking that it is, but once you’ve done the Duolingo course you’re in a very good place to start moving towards watching shows in other languages (Netflix is really good) and starting to break apart more basic texts in those languages. I don’t know which country you are from, but often after a Duolingo course the set texts for languages in the british GCSE and A Level are a reasonable level to push yourself, and the lists of what these are are available everywhere online.

 Basically I would defo start with Duolingo because it’s the most accessible, and then you can supplement it with other materials- there are a lot of things on Duolingo forums to help with that as well- I would give those a browse!

Hope this helps!

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Hey, I have ADHD and executive disfunction, plus other mental health stuff that makes it really hard for me to start on homework or studying. Do you have any advice about getting started or dealing with anxiety about doing work? Anything helps. Thanks. Have a good day!

Hey! I’m obviously not an expert on ADHD, but I know what it’s like to feel totally and utterly overwhelmed by everything when you want to start working. What’s worked best for me is to make a big to do list, whether on an app or on paper (I like paper because then I can aggressively scribble things off when I’m done), and just keep tackling things one by one, because doing smaller things helps to get the big stuff done- if there’s something big that I want to get done, or an abstract task like “apply for internships,” I like to break that further into a bunch of smaller steps that I can do like “find a list of companies,” “check my CV is up to date,” etc, so that it doesn’t feel like a mammoth task to do at once, which often feels a lot less overwhelming, and if you have a list you can keep adding little tasks when you come up with them so that your tasks are all in one place and you don’t have to worry about forgetting to do something. You can even do this with actual work- I like to break up my essay writing into tasks like “make a list of books I need,” “get the books out,” “read one and take notes,” etc.

 Equally, I also like to sometimes trick my brain into being productive by adding a few things to the list that don’t count as work but are productive. Things like “change bedsheets” and “do laundry” need doing but aren’t necessarily work-based, but if you add them to the to do list and then start with them and cross them off as you go, it’s often a lot easier to feel like you’re getting into the swing of working without having to jump straight into work. As well as this I like to enforce a 2 minute rule, where if a task will only take two minutes then I have to do it. Something as simple as writing an answer to an email or even tackling the inbox after having not looked at it for a while barely take any time but you can keep putting them off easily on the basis that they won’t take much time, but this is then an obstacle to other things that need doing, and again once you’re in the swing of tackling small tasks you can move on to the bigger ones that will take 10 minutes or 30 minutes, and before you know it you will have done most of the things on your list!

 In short, break it up into tiny fragments, keep a list, and just keep tackling little things!