Studying through a pandemic - Katie shares her top tips

It took almost until the end of the first draft of this blog post to realise that everything I had said about top tips for getting through lockdown studies had been reiterated one million times over in various clickbait-y articles over the past year.

We’ve been bombarded with ‘make the most of this time’, ‘go for a walk’, ‘try mindfulness’ and ‘top ten ways to style yourself for teams meetings’, studying from home has kind of felt like a full time job in itself!

So, I want to celebrate the small things, here are some little to-dos that have made studying at home feel a smidge easier:

Katie’s top tips

1. Making the bed in the morning helps you feel less inclined to dive straight back into it after picking up your laptop.
2. Treat yourself to that lovely notepad you’ve been eyeing up at Paperchase or Sainsbury’s.
3. Forcing yourself to sit in front of the screen for hours upon end will do more harm than good, take that break, you deserve it!
4. So, sit up and stretch, be aware of the tension around your shoulders and neck.
5. Stare aimlessly out of the window for 10 minutes and people/ nature watch, you might be surprised at what you see.
6. Keep a glass or bottle of water near you when in lectures or revising to stay hydrated.
7. If, like me, your sleeping schedule is erring on the side of vampire, try setting your alarm 15 minutes earlier every few days. Easing back into a routine feels better than a dash out of bed to the computer in time for a 9am lecture.
8. Read something for fun, whether it is a Buzzfeed quiz or a feel-good news story – here’s a few of my faves.
9. Break your ‘to do’ list into little chunks, a chapter here, or 200 words there, it really is all about those little victories.
10. Reach out to one other person on your course, I’ve been grateful for the people I’ve met during year one of my studies, we’ve lent on each other through assignment hand-ins and placements. It feels comforting to have that support network.

And finally, I could never get on board with the ‘be kind’ rhetoric, although the sentiment is nice, it often feels like a parent admonishing their child for not sharing in the playground (if toys had somehow become packs of toilet roll and pasta).

Given my experience over the past 18 months, maybe ‘be empathetic’ would be a more fitting sentiment. Whether we’ve been waiting for assignment results, placement confirmations, or just for the pub doors to reopen, the people around us have been keeping our community ticking over.

In many cases we’ve been frontline workers, as shop assistant or volunteering at testing sites, so my last tip would be to write one thing you’re proud of on a post-it note each week and let it fill up the fridge or bathroom mirror, because we really have smashed it this year – go us!

Written by: Katie Whitmore
Course title: BA Hons Primary Education
Year: First year undergraduate
Place of study: University of Wolverhampton