Preparing For My Postgraduate Degree

Kat, a recent History graduate, SU student staff member, and prospective Royal Holloway master's student, shares some of her planning, financial, and studying advice as she prepares for the beginning of her postgraduate degree.

If like me, you’re a recent graduate embarking on a postgraduate degree, you’re probably acutely aware of the step up from undergraduate to postgraduate study. With more reading and coursework to account for, it’s vital that I get ready now to build a healthy routine for myself as a master's student.

Organisation

It may be a cliché, but ‘starting as you mean to go on' has been fundamental to my time as a student; it sets the tone for the rest of the term. Having looked over my timetable, reading lists, and Moodle pages, I’ve started to build my planner.

Creating structure for myself is so important for my mental and physical wellbeing. As a History student, most of my work is done independently and I have very few contact hours. That means I’m responsible for dividing my work and time into a regular weekly routine. As a confessed organisation freak, I’ve tried and tested the most popular organisation apps. I would recommend using a digital planner over a physical planner to organise your time. Digital calendars are far more flexible; they allow you to think in advance but still make changes when you need to. You can see what work needs to be done each day or week and create a healthy daily routine that accounts for exercise and your social life. Planning takes most of the decision-making out of your day as you have already organised your time; all you need to do is follow your plans.

With at least three years of undergraduate experience, you probably have some understanding of how you work best – trust in your experience! It’s vital to be realistic with your time, especially with how many hours you can work each day and how long it will take to complete a task (be generous!). The 8-8-8 is just one method used by many people to break up their day: 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours of personal time. It may seem simple, but it has taken me the past three years to really understand how I work best. Finding a schedule that works for you is fundamental!

Technology Health Check

Before the start of the academic year, I’ll also be carrying out a technology ‘health check’. With almost all of my work assessed, written, or uploaded online, I need to ensure that my laptop will last the year (fingers crossed). Admittedly, throughout my undergrad, I have been very bad at doing this. That’s why I’ve made backing up, cleaning out, and archiving old and unused files onto an external hard drive, and updating my laptop a priority. If you’re a Mac user, ‘Clean My Mac’ is a useful app for clearing out files that you can’t do manually (there’s a Windows version too). It costs £30 a year but, in my opinion, it’s a very worthwhile investment!

Reading

As a History student, reading occupies about 90% of my time at university. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been creating reading lists to help me visualise everything I need to read or buy before the autumn term. As some of my Moodle pages are available already, I have been looking through the general syllabus and reading lists to familiarise myself with my weekly workload. This has helped me to allocate the time needed each week to complete all my seminar prep.

Alongside reading for my degree, I also love reading in my own time. However, I sometimes find it difficult to keep my reading habit up as the year gets busier and my workload increases. Goodreads, a social media app for book lovers, lets me set myself a yearly reading challenge, and create my reading lists and ‘bookshelves’ with all the books I would like to read in the future. Even if you’re not a reader, it will be beneficial to your mental wellbeing to prioritise the things you love doing in your spare time.

Finances

I’ve always been a money-conscious person; however, the cost-of-living crisis is likely to present some financial difficulties in the coming year. Food and transport are already noticeably more expensive, and as a private renter, I’m responsible for all my bills. Moreover, with the impending energy bill increase in October, it is going to be difficult to plan for certain costs. If you’re worried about energy bills and the rising cost of living, you can chat with a Student Advisor at the SU’s Advice Centre. I’d also recommend researching different Thinktanks such as the Money Saving Expert for useful advice on how to reduce your energy costs over the next few months – they have student-specific advice as well as more general tips.

To keep on top of my finances, I create a monthly budget. Working out how much disposable income I have left after rent, utilities, phone bills, etc. gives me a little piece of mind! Apps like Notion or Microsoft Excel have easy-to-use monthly budget templates – you just need to input your figures.

P.S. Remember to apply for your postgraduate loan (if you have one) from Student Finance England (SFE) before the start of term! You must have a confirmed way of paying your fees to fully enrol on your course.

Bring on Term One...

Unlike an undergraduate degree, a master's degree is four terms – there is no long summer break. Knowing that I won’t be getting a proper break until September 2023, planning has become an even greater priority than during my undergraduate; it will be essential for preventing burnout and fatigue. It will also hopefully make for a more seamless transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study. However, it’s important to make your planning flexible; things will inevitably need to change. Accounting for this flexibility when planning my time should help to ensure that I don't become overwhelmed if my schedule changes. Whilst this may seem like a lot of work (especially if you don’t like planning) the more you organise now, the easier your term will be.

Finally, my parting advice to any student is to pace yourself, spread out your workload, have confidence in your experience, and enjoy the year ahead of you!