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End of Term Review for MSc Students

This review aims to assess the progress made in the first term of the MSc program, anticipate future challenges, and provide practical approaches and stress management skills. It also offers sources of advice and help.

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End of Term Review for MSc Students

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  1. End of Term Review for MSc students 9 December 2009 Adam Sandelson LSE Student Counselling Service

  2. Aims • Review progress over the first term • Anticipate future challenges • Practical approaches • Stress management skills • Sources of advice and help

  3. What progress have you made in the first term of the MSc programme? Part 1

  4. Initial challenges • Transition - leaving behind the familiar and adapting to the new • Coping with loss, after initial excitement subsides • Meeting new people • Academic challenges

  5. The Social Side of Settling in • Making new friends • Meeting people from similar and different backgrounds • Keeping contact with people from home • Balancing from work and leisure. • Being realistic about what to expect • Give yourself time to adjust • Looking after yourself - food and sleep

  6. Settling in: The Academic side • Adjusting to a new level of study • Adjusting to self-directed learning • Trying to keep previous standards • Adjusting reading strategies • Presentations and essays • The tutor relationship

  7. MSc Academic challenges • Feeling overwhelmed with material • Adapting to a new style of learning • Needing time to develop an independent critical voice • Anxiety can lead to procrastination • We may disguise avoidance by being very busy • We may find things to do that are interesting or even useful, but don't contribute towards the main goal

  8. What were your initial expectations? Social Cultural Academic How has your actual experience worked out? Reviewing expectations

  9. What are the future work challenges facing you as an MSc student? Part 2

  10. Sustaining momentum Academic support Divergent tutor/ student expectations Essays, exams and the dissertation Making decisions about the future – jobs, internships, PhD’s, location, relationships Sorting out your whole life in 1 year Future work challenges

  11. Underlying dynamics • Trying to please others • Wanting to be the best • Being a perfectionist • The family / historic context for your success, eg keeping the family together • Setting yourself impossible targets • Re-enacting anxiety, trauma, failure …

  12. Dynamics of study

  13. Keeping perfectionism in check • Perfectionist attitudes can reduce achievement • They deny you satisfaction and cause you to achieve far less • Perfectionism is undesirable and an illusion! • Experiment with your standards for success: try for 80% • Focus on the process of doing an activity not just the end result. • Evaluate success in terms of what you accomplished and whether you enjoyed the task

  14. What are the practical ways of dealing with future challenges? Part 3

  15. Practical approaches • Revise and develop your study skills • Time management skills • Realistic and achieveable goals • Short term targets and longer term strategies • Recognise achievements • Concentrate on the task, not the outcome • Talk to others, ask for help and support

  16. Break down huge activities into small manageable tasks Remember past successes - you are likely to pass! Allow time for breaks … space to breathe … and think Mind maps, scribble ideas Go for a walk, talk out loud Focussing on the task

  17. Review your Stress Management Skills Part 4

  18. Stress Management Skills • Physical, behavioural, cognitive • Regularly switch off with some kind of physical activity • Good self care – sleep, diet, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine • Allow yourself time out without guilt • Acknowledge anxiety, rather than denying it. • Ask if your negative thoughts are realistic

  19. Challenging negative thoughts • Apply ‘Socratic reasoning’ or imagine this being tested in a Court of Law • Identify the negative thought • Eg, I can’t do this Course • Ascertain the evidence For and Against • Ask if you are making a ‘thinking error’ • Propose a more reasonable alternative thought

  20. Thinking errors • All or nothing thinking • Discounting the positive/ tunnel vision • only seeing the negative side of things • Overgeneralizing • because it happened in the past it will happen again in the future • Believing a catastrophe will happen • Emotional Reasoning • If I feel it then it must be true

  21. What are the biggest challenges facing you over the coming year Where can you most usefully improve your existing work strategies and coping skills? Evaluate your approach

  22. Part 5 - Advice and help Academic Adviser Disability Office Departmental Staff Student Services Centre TLC study skills advisors Moodle Student Union and Advice Centre Medical Centre Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisors Deans Don't wait until problems have grown impossibly large It’s OK to ask for help earlier

  23. LSE Student Counselling Service – G507 • Free and confidential • Mainly short term counselling • Book appointments in advance • Urgent appointments (phone early in the day) • See Website for • Stress management handouts • Self help resources on a wide range of student issues (study – related and personal difficulties) • Relaxation MP3’s

  24. Forthcoming Groups • Stress Management Group (3 weeks), Thursday 2 – 4, 28.1.10 • Self Esteem Group (3 weeks) Friday 11 - 1, 26.2.10 • Women’s Group (8 weeks) Monday 11 - 1, 18.1.10 Places on all groups need to be booked in advance. Please see the website, Call Ext 3627, visit G507 or email student.counselling@lse.ac.uk,

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