My experience with assessments at York has been one of the most productive I have known in my academic career. I went into this degree with a healthy mindset of doing the best I could in terms of writing. The academic support I then have received, as well as clear structure in relation to assessments, has helped me feel like I have met a lot of the goals I set for myself this year.
In October, I was given the opportunity to write a sample essay for the guiding module ‘Postgraduate Life in Practice’. This helped me to determine my strengths and weaknesses. This made me feel a lot more secure going into the first round of assessments after the first semester, which consisted of two 4500-word essays.
Creative freedom
The creative freedom I had in terms of deciding my own essay titles and subjects meant that the assessments felt like projects that were entirely mine. After consulting with my personal supervisor and lecturers – whose doors are always open for any questions during office hours – I created essays that felt personal to me. I chose subjects I particularly enjoyed during the seminars I had enthusiastically participated in during my first semester. As long as I stayed within the set guidelines for the modules I had chosen, I could tailor the essays to my interests and use my own voice to highlight what I had learned.
The second semester progressed similarly, with the added benefit of having a good amount of time before the start of classes to get ahead of the assigned weekly readings. This really helped me save time that I could invest in figuring out how to use the feedback I received from my first round of essays and make my last two essays even better. The feedback, which is split into different categories such as structure and topic, for example, has been clear and concise. The feedback forms have highlighted not only what I could improve upon, but have also showed me what I was doing right and should continue to do for future assessments.
Dissertation
The largest project of the year is the dissertation of up to 16 000 words. During ‘Postgraduate Life in Practice’, all students across the different literature MA’s are provided with helpful lectures on how to effectively write a larger body of work. In addition to that, everyone is asked to fill in a dissertation proposal so that we’re matched with a member of staff that would be most helpful in supporting our dissertations based on our chosen areas of study.
My dissertation supervisor and the five one-hour meetings I had with him allowed me to express some of the concerns I had. I received the support and re-assurance I needed to make sure the research and writing process advanced as smoothly as possible. I found it particularly useful to be able to submit drafts of my work for him to look over and make notes on – to have that insight from someone who has years of experience writing in academia has been invaluable to me.
While daunting at times, I am really enjoying learning more about and writing on my chosen topic and working on the biggest project I have undertaken so far. I’m learning how to contribute to an academic field by finding gaps within the existing research and filling them in.
self-improvement
Overall, this year of assessments has flown by in the blink of an eye, and yet I have enjoyed it immensely, even with the added anxiety of getting over some of that imposter syndrome I know many others have to deal with as well. The academic support and confidence my lecturers and supervisors have placed in me helped build my own confidence to a point where I could focus on my assessments without worrying about every step I took.
I spent many hours at the J.B. Morrell and King’s Manor library surrounded by colourful pens, books and notebooks, reading and writing about the things that particularly captured my attention.
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