3 things I’ve learned in my 11 years as a student in Higher Education.

I started my degree in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield in 1999, following it with an MA in Modern History at Durham University (2002-3). I stayed there to do a PGCE (2003-4) which was the first year of an MA in Education. I continued this part-time whilst teaching and then transferred to the Ed.D. programme. I’m  currently (hopefully!) coming towards the end of writing my thesis on the concept of ‘digital literacy’. In total, then, I’ve been a student in Higher Education for 11 years.

Three of the most important things I’ve learned in the process?

1. Thinking, writing and editing are separate activities

There’s not point trying to think something through whilst in the midst of writing. Stop, go for a walk or just do something different (like the washing-up). Likewise, editing whilst writing is a frustrating activity. Separate these three activities to be more successful and productive in your academic writing.

2. Dont’ copy other people

Obviously don’t plagiarise other people’s work, but also don’t copy the way they go about doing things. Others engaged in research express shock that I don’t use the usual doctoral-level tools such as Endnote, etc. Whilst you should certainly learn from others, create (and continue to iterate) a system that works for you. I use a combination of a personal wiki, Google Scholar, Evernote, Dropbox, XMind and Scrivener. Have the confidence to go your own way.

3. Immersion is more important than chunking

Studying part-time is a whole lot harder than studying full-time, for obvious reasons. When studying part-time, instead of setting aside just one block of time per week it’s a a much better idea to have several shorter sessions. This keeps ideas in your mind and makes it more likely that your subconscious churns over and creates links between concepts!