#nidling quote

[nidling]

“Most people quit because they look how far they have to go, not how far they have come.”

[dcublogger]

Sarah | Psychology

Hi, my name is Sarah and I am a mature student studying Psychology. I hope you enjoy my blog about my experience in DCU.

Semester 1 - 2019

December 20th, Semester 1: Finishing Semester

At just like that it is over. Semester 1 of year 3 is complete! It is honestly so hard to explain how quickly each semester goes. One of my friends said it best when she told us that we have 6 semesters done and only 3 more left until we graduate. 

I wish my semesters we more balanced for me personally. I have not found a balance between college time and mom time. Each week that passes I think next week will be better, next week I will be more organised. But then life happens and my little one gets sick. (Trying to leave for college when your three-year-old is pleading with you to stay, is an actual test I have only seldom passed!) 

But look, I have made it. There are still assignments to do and exams to prepare for but I have survived and made it through! Take that anxiety! We had an amazing end to this semester. We had to present our preliminary finds from our research project on the last day of the term. It was an amazing way to finish up. Getting to see everyone's hard work presented in a mock conference-style was incredible. 

Here we are, if you look super close you can see that there is a buggy in the background and a small person’s feet hanging out! Yes, listening to me present made my daughter fall asleep!... Now I know how to get her to bed early on Christmas Eve! 

Now, only four more sleeps everybody!

December 2nd, Semester 1: Managing Anxiety

Okay, the final stretch of the semester. So far this semester is going much better than this time last year! Last year, I developed extreme anxiety. I have probably always had anxiety on some level without knowing it really. Despite reading about anxiety and talking to many different people who experienced anxiety and all the bits that go with. I never recognised it in myself. I always just thought I was a bit weird! Last year though it passed my normal threshold of just negative thoughts and feeling worried about not being able to complete a task. Usually, I would take some time to myself and focus on some soul searching and in a week or two the moment would pass and I would return to normal functioning. Last year though this was not the case. I guess this time I was almost finished semester one of second year which was an achievement for me personally. The fear of not belonging or not being good enough, that someone would soon figure out that I was not a good enough student and would kick me out of college became so overwhelming. (Of course, this is a completely irrational thought, but that is the mechanism of anxiety!). 

I felt that I wasn’t doing well enough (I was really doing fine) in college and I wasn’t being a good enough mum to my daughter either. So two of the things I love more than anything imaginable, I was failing at, or at least that is what I thought. My anxiety manifested in panic attacks, which I believed to be some kind of issue with my heart (yes, really). I would shake for hours uncontrollably and was unable to sleep. I remember hearing someone talk about their anxiety and not being able to move out of bed in the morning time, in the morning they felt like a zero. After spending hours just trying to talk themselves to leave the house, they finally managed it and everything was okay. So at night time, late at night, finally they felt like a bit of a hero and could not sleep, and so the cycle would continue. 

This is anxiety. This is the dark passenger (Dexter quote), that has been around me for a very long time, the only thing with college is that I could just stay inside for two weeks until it passed. I had to keep trying to get there, trying to do my assignments, and the vicious thought pattern of ‘I’m not good enough’ is not a friend when you are doing course work!. My anxiety was crippling, the fear was so real. I have to point out here that DCU has an on-campus doctor and health centre which is staffed by some truly incredible people. They helped me work through all of my anxiety and to understand how to manage it better.  I was able to communicate my experiences to my lecturers, without their understanding and encouragement to just keep going little by little, I would not be about to finish this semester now. 

The reason I wanted to talk about this is that I know so many people who have experienced similar experiences to the one I have described. Many people might worry about not being good enough or able to complete something they really want to do. You absolutely can. If you are reading this and are really thinking that this is something you can relate to, know that anxiety or any mental health difficulty does not have to define you, it does not control you. I have learned over the last year that my anxiety is a guide, a little Jiminy Cricket (less friendly at times). My anxiety was telling me I needed to take a breather, regroup and remember what is important. My path has brought me here, and there is a bigger picture that is being built around me. I honestly believe this. I feel that Psychology in DCU has been so much more than just a college course, a thing I put down on my CAO form. It was a conscious decision that has brought me on an incredible journey of understanding my world, myself and my life. Little by little, it has rippled down through my family and huge. This course has already been so much more than just an academic education. 

Just remember...

 November 3, Week 7: Reading Week

So the weeks are flying by, we are already in week 7! This week we have a reading week. This is fantastic, it really gives everyone a great chance to get some reading in and some space to organise for the second half of the semester, as well as preparations for assignments and continuous assessments.

This year we have a big group project for our Research Methods module. It is an amazing opportunity to really see what it is like to get stuck into different types of research. I have to say this practical side of the Psychology programme is amazing! A lot of our modules have a lecture and workshop or practical based session throughout the weeks. If you are like me and you learn better by doing then this is an amazing part of Psychology at DCU! We have been building up our research methods and statistic experience over the first two years, each week theory comes in the lecture and then we have gotten a chance to run some statistical analysis in our practicals based on the theory we have covered in class. I was not a mathematical person what so ever, to say I feared numbers is putting it mildly! This module has become one of my favourites! I am not saying I am amazing at it by any ‘means’ (another statistical joke), but I love the module, something my family could never have imagined me saying... ever!

Aside from catching up on some course work, I had an amazing start to the week. On Monday, I was helping out at the World Online Learning Conference, which was an incredible experience, to say the least! It was a huge amount of fun and I got to meet some amazing people from over the world who were working or teaching in some way through an online platform.

...As you can see there was a lot of fun as well as a huge amount of organisation, work and dedication from all those involved from the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) at DCU. Below is Mark one of the organisers and one of my fellow student ambassadors (I am safely behind the camera!)

Before I head off this evening, I really just want to remind you guys about the Open Days which are coming up very soon, (November 15th &16th). These days are so much fun, you get to come and visit the campus and meet some of the students and lecturers. There will be talks about the Psychology programme and a whole lot of lovely people to chat with, if this doesn't tempt you enough, I will also be there to answer (as best I can) any questions you have at all! Check out the website for more details.

The link is right here:  https://www.dcu.ie/studentrecruitment/openday

I have so much more news to tell you all but right now is bedtime, so I am off to read Christmas stories and tuck a whole lot of teddy bears into a bed while somehow fit a 3-year-old in there too.

Until next time (hopefully the weekend), wish me luck for bedtime!

October 22, Semester 1: Thinking Back

I can not believe that I am beginning week five of my third year of psychology. I have just finished preparing my CV for Intra (work placement) applications. I can not help but think back to my first week in first year…

In that beginning week, we all sat in HG50, a room that would soon become like a new home to us. I had met some of the mature students from my class already. During the Summer there was a mature student evening and then before the semester started we had the option to be involved with a mature student writing week. We all sat in that room, excitedly waiting and anxiously whispering to each other. Probably all of us still in disbelief that we had somehow managed to find ourselves here sitting in a room with some of the brightest leaving cert students in the country.

Somehow I had managed to finally get here. I had been a self-proclaimed life wanderer, weaving in and out of jobs that were underpaid and where I was overworked with huge amounts of stress and little space to grow. A person who had longed to be an excellent student in school but had fallen, unnoticed through the cracks of teenage school life like an Alice tumbling down to Wonderland. School had been a frightening experience for me in my life and probably an experience that up until that first week in 2017 sitting in a DCU lecture room, was an experience I did not wish to repeat.

As our soon to be lecturers filed into to room, making their way to the very front, all smiling and talking quieting amongst themselves I couldn’t have felt more excited. One by one, they introduced themselves to us and briefly highlighted the modules they teach on and their own area of expertise.  Almost all of them spoke in some way about how not so long ago they themselves were sitting in a room much like us and in the blink of an eye that moment had passed. It couldn’t possibly happen that way for me I thought, no way. This is going to be a long journey, four years is a ‘significant’ [psychology joke, after 1st year research methods you will get it more] amount of time and it will feel that way I thought.

The first two years of university was personally tough for me. My dad had become quite ill in the Spring of 2017. Very quickly, the mixture of caring for a sick parent while negotiating being a parent to a one-year-old, attending lectures, tutorials and practicals, volunteering and somehow squeezing in a homelife became real. It was like just one morning I woke up and all of a sudden I was an adult! 

I was alive with life, soaking up every drop of university I could, the no sleep didn’t matter because I was learning. I was learning so much about so much that I wanted to learn about, and that is honestly a life-changing thing…

But that is enough about my thinking back for now. For now, I just want anyone to know, that for me the last two years have been a test. I am not sure what the universe was testing me for but all I know is that everything that is possibly imaginable as stress has happened to me within two years. All squeezed together for maximum effect but here I am about to begin applications for a work placement and hopefully neuroscience-related (my dream).

If you are in any way thinking that you want to study psychology as a mature student or other, and if you are worried that it will be hard to manage, all I can say is, yes it is hard but you absolutely can manage it. You will absolutely not regret that choice. You will grow and develop in so many ways you never expected. I like to think in ways I am stronger after those two years, I am better for it. And all those lecturers, who might have seemed like just faces I saw on my first week, the ones who introduced themselves and their area of study to my class. Each and every one of them supported me and encouraged me to follow my dream and to keep going when things got the hardest. That is why DCU is different, I am certain that in any other place in time, I would not have survived, I would not have managed, and quite frankly I could very well be curled up in a ball somewhere crying.

And so here I am writing about it, almost halfway through my first semester of my third year as a psychology student. This can absolutely be you too (minus the personal stress of course!).  If you like Alice in Wonderland, then follow that white rabbit and let yourself fall into the madness that is the land of psychology. You will not regret it.

Lastly the DCU Open Days are on the 15th and 16th of November. These Open Days give you a great opportunity to talk to loads of people about courses that you might be interested in and you will also get to see the DCU Campus and go on a tour of the campus too. To register and find out all the info click here: https://www.dcu.ie/studentrecruitment/openday