Went from a 3rd in first year to a 1st in final year AMA

I like the Legally Blonde reference hopefully you pulled a Warren on your old group in the end.

Talk about a comeback.

Sorry, didn't quiet get what you meant in the bold part, can you expand?

Final year was a breeze! I took some of the hardest optional modules available in my course as well as a final year project that was about building a machine (not going any further with the specifics)...and the truth is that, I have worked much harder for my 2:2 in 2nd year than for my 1st in final year!
I guess people can underestimate people's circumstances and how massively it can affect their grades although they might have potential.
Back in 2nd year, everything that could go wrong essentially did! I had 2 deaths in my family, the case about friends in my previous post, working too many hours in my job, studying as much as possible outside work and still not achieving good grades. It took the toll!
4th year I didn't have a job, was bursaried for the rest of the year, was able to focus on my modules and bring my potential to its fullest. There's also the fact that I have gathered so many study/revision techniques throughout the years and learnt from feedback on coursework and by looking back at my exam scripts, that I knew since last September that I was going to get a first this year. So this whole year was just enjoying the process of getting there. This year was the worst for lots of my peers when talking to them, for me it was the very opposite.

HAHA! I guess I kind of talked about that group like they were a bunch of witches, which they were at the time!
But things have changed since, one of them started saying, I completely changed my mind about you, I didn;t really properly know you at the time...blabla
They actually all regretted their childish behavior from earlier years. One of them used to always moan about other people and talk about them behind their back...etc. She's now all changed and much put together.
So it was all good in the end because it felt like my personal experience didn't only make me grow as a person but also affected other people in my surroundings.

it doesn't really matter that much what I was saying I'd edit it out and we can pretend that we never saw it. But basically I guess I'd be interested in seeing like a survey of people and how their grades change from 1st year, 2nd, 3rd etc.

But thanks I suppose you were worked very hard in the early years, not just because of uni work because of all the other things that were going on.. so good on you. I'll remember this thread when I start my final year but it's good to hear about your journey, what you learnt etc.

Resitting a module that you've already passed is interesting too... I might have to look into that and see if my uni offers the same

Well, if my classmates are anything to go by. I'd say there's 4 main groups. The ones who have always had a consistent high first, then the ones who had low firsts in earlier years then got mid to high 2:1s in later year, then there's the consistent 2:1 people, then the consistent 2:2 people. So most of my peers have either stayed on the same level or declined from what they got in earlier years.
The only other case I know is mildly similar to mine more so in grades than in circumstances is someone who did a BEng (the 3 years course). Don't know what he got in 1st year, but he got 54% in 2nd year and like 71 or 72% in 3rd year, and averaged a 2:1 in the end. Don't know much more other than that...

Which year are you on? What course and what grade are you expecting?

I probably forgot to say that to stay on an MEng course at my uni, you need to achieve 55% in 2nd year and 55% in 3rd year. In 2nd year, I got 52%, so I was asked to pick up to 2 modules to resit out of a list of 4 modules (from which I had only failed one). The reason I was offered that is to try to bring up my overall average to what's required by resitting only up to 2 modules. Now I could have chosen to resit the one I had failed only. Focusing on revising only one module would help me get a really high grade in it, and up my average. But I decided to resit 2 for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
What then happens is that your actual resit marks count towards a fictional average that, if more than 55% (mine was 57%), you stay on the MEng. But the resits are still capped, so it's the original 52% that counted towards my final degree classification if that makes sens.

That sounds about right, everyone I know has stayed the same/declined too, and they've noticed a kind of step up in difficulty between 1st and 2nd year which is just enough to lose them a few % from before. With me, I was on a low 1st in the first semester and a high 2:1 at the end, but I fear that this year I've dropped down a whole classification. No real extenuating circumstances and no one to blame but myself, but I'm not complaining or anything like that that's just how it is and I just have to use that for me, my maths course is weighted 1:2 between the second and third year and just take things as they come.

Oh okay I understand what those resits meant then, and that you needed to do them but they weren't going to improve your grade. That's why I was a bit surprised at first because I think where I am, if you pass, that's it, no resits so the fictional average thing makes sense.

Talking about that, had I went for the BEng course, I would have average 59% for my degree. The 2% rule would have still made it a 2:1 degree, but I really did want an comfortable 2:1 and to prove at least in final year that I'm capable of getting a first, which is I went for the MEng course (4 yrs).
I'd say if you think you got the potential for it, and you can see room for improvement, definitely go for the 4 years course, 3rd and 4th year in my course together had an 82% weighing! Meaning they can really make the difference. It also gives you an extra summer in case you haven't lined up an internship this summer.

Back to my point of hanging out with different people and not sticking to any particular group, that was useful in getting to know how different people study, and picking good habits from here and there. Like one of the things I found is that I didn't realise how much studying I was meant to do, and that I was studying less than required in earlier years (and not just because of the job). So I drastically changed my study routine, like I would study for at least 4 hrs everyday and maybe 7 or 8 on the weekends. And study like 8 hrs/day if not more during christmas/easter break.

I think most exams are more about you covering relevant content than any personal aptitude for that subject. Most exam questions will either be from past papers, worksheets or problems worked during the class. So it's quiet obvious then that if you study all of that, you shouldn't be able to fall below a 60% however "hard" the exam is. So it's all about having that very time to cover all what's needed.
One more tip on this topic is to look at past papers and try to determine the recurrent topics, then practice the parts of the lectures/worksheets that are related to them more than the rest.
If you don't understand any of the content, like I previously said in a post, do go for other resources on the net, there's always a YouTube video or a lecture notes pdf out there that explains it better than your lecturer!

Ah I see, that is actually a very clever thing to have done that for the reasons you stated - good foresight there

Long story short though, I am unable (even if I wanted to, and I don't particularly want to do a masters for maths, another subject perhaps but I'd want it paid for by an employer most likely.. or to see how it actually affects my pay, etc, it's definitely something for the future) to switch to the integrated masters at my uni, but it's a good idea if it applies

Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Though (and it's not of much use to you now) I think that it's not just about the number of hours you study, but how much you get done, how you're approaching it, what methods you're using etc rather than trying to satisfy a quota. But yes, I'll definitely be looking at those hours in the final year (though my course is rather intensive at
around 20 hours, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less, in contact hours )

Mhm, the magic number here is 40% here instead of 60% (about 40% of the marks are 'easy' for anyone who has studied the course a bit, after that it gets more difficult ) and with maths, you know.. some things you just can't google, or you do and end up more confused because it can get very specific at times and no one's really breaking down one particular uni topic you know.. but I suppose that is true for other degrees where that is more possible oh, and I'd add, looking for a reasonable amount of support from tutors as well make the most of them and all of that, without being unreasonable.

My course was in mechanical engineering, so equally intensive with around 20 hrs/wk in the earlier years, more like 23 if we have a lab..etc. 3rd year was the lightest because it holds the same number of credits (120) but a big chunk of it is for your 3rd year project/dissertation which is in your own time, then 4th year has more hours again because it carries 150 credit.
20 hrs/wk is an average of 4 hrs/day across a 5 days week. So not that much after all, you're still left with most of the day to get lots of study done. Don't waste the 1 or 2 hrs you get between lectures too, if anything try to go over whatever you've covered earlier that day in terms of lectures...etc. Caffeine also helps you stay awake/focused.
You can also get sooo much done in the weekends if you don't spend them with family or on a weekend away...etc. You can catch up with the whole week and even prepare for what's next or your project...etc.

It might have been different for me, but even with all what I had going on in the early years of my degree I still managed to get +40% in most of my modules despite having very little time to study. STEM degrees tend to work quiet logically, and you don't need to memorise too much, so for lots of parts of it you just tend to go with the flow.
So I still stand by my point that if you cover everything there's to cover: lecture notes/past papers/worksheets, you're pretty much guaranteeing a 2:1...unless you struggle to understand the content itself, which like I said you should seek help for from all the sources available to you.

You'd be surprised at how much Maths mechanical engineering has depending on what modules you take. One of my 4th year modules was computational fluid dynamics, which is basically all partial differential equations and iterative nodes solutions. You would think that's really niche, but I found plenty of resources online!

It might look like what you're studying is rocket science (and it probably is), but at the end of the day, unlike a PhD, an undergrad degree will have content that was covered both in your uni and unis in other parts of the world times and times again. Most of the stuff you'll cover in an undergrad is established content for which there's at least a few books covering it ...etc (lots of them downloadable for free if you do your research). So yeah, just don't give up and think that for (almost) every problem, there's a solution.

Another tip I might as well throw in is about friends and people you hang out in general.
From school, people used to make a small groupie of friend and stick to them throughout school. I thought it was the same at uni and I made "friends" and stuck to them throughout 1st year...which was not often enough because of my job in part, and also because I was tight enough on finances not to afford taking part in much of the stuff they do together.
Come 2nd year, those people started almost avoiding me...etc, and I guess part of it was also the fact that they considered me a bit of a failure because of my 1st year grades and didn't want me to drag back the group during common study time? Might remind you of 'legally blond' if you're old enough to have watched it Truth is that I actually had more potential than the whole group, and that because of my circumstances back then it didn't show through grades (once again, you're not your grades). I ended up doing much better than these people in later years when taking the same modules, and although they have obviously averaged better than me for the whole degree. My grades for 3rd and 4th year were higher.
Anyways, the whole situation just really got to me in 2nd year, especially that you will need to have at least a person or two who to fall back on if not for things as simple as to ask about deadlines in case you forgot them or compare coursework answers to...
And I thought at that point that most people had already formed their "groupies" and that it was too late to join any anymore...If only I knew how wrong I was!!
In 3rd year, I decided to ditch the whole group and take different modules from everyone, and I had a chance of coming across this erasmus exchange student that was there for only a semester. We hanged out together and did lots of common study/revision. The experience brought back so much confidence in me that even after that friend left in 2nd semester, I was confident approaching people in my course I had never talked to before. Also, because I had reduced my working hours during that year, my grades improved and I had "something" to bring to other people academically which I guess made things easier.
The "groupie" from 1st year started wanting to hang out with me again end of 3rd year and in 4th year!! and they were being so clingy and trying too hard to be friends by being too nice, throwing compliments every now and again. haha

So yeah, long text again, but my point being that uni is soo different from school. The particular people I told you about (the groupie) were an exception as they still had the bitterness/high school b!tch from back in their school days. But most people in my course, like I found out later, weren't like that. So just be versatile and flexible about it, that's what uni is all about.

You mean Sunderland?

Lol

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Already answered that question, and the answer is NO!
Also, a quick google search would have revealed to you that Sunderland Uni does not an MEng course (which is what I did), they only offer the BEng 3 yrs course.

Seems like you're one of those pity people who likes to take away from people's achievements to make yourself feel better.

PDEs aren't as niche as it gets, I'm afraid - I'm not surprised that there are loads of resources for it I've come across more niche things, and those are the things that I often struggle with.



True I guess it all comes down to motivation and dedication and those other weird buzz words. Thanks

Not at all - I'm just being a realist. So, what was it? Leeds? Southampton? ICL?

(FYI: Guardian rankings are the most ridiculous out there.)

But, well done.

It's not PDEs that are niche haha did those in 2nd year maths. It;s their application to computational fluid dynamics. There's phd around that area only, and it's not a module offered for BEng students, it's only available for 4th year students. The module is about describing complex fluid flows including swirl and other non-linear flows using PDEs, so the difficulty is not in the solution itself, but knowing how to describe different flows using different PDEs...etc.
There's other niche areas to do with the physics I have used in other modules that you're probably not familiar with so I just used that particular module as an example as it's the closest to what you're specialising in (Maths).

And YES! By all means, motivation is absolutely key to do well! You should be ready to go as far as it takes to achieve what you want. I guess my experience will be more useful for people who do have the motivation to succeed but don't quiet know how to go about it in terms of study/revision/exam techniques.

I can relate to this a lot, went through a bit of a tough time with so called friends, and just had to cut them loose. Even at uni (I'm 21 btw and just finished second year so yes I've watched legally blonde haha), I'm really sceptical of who I'm friends with and who I consider as a friend due to my taunting previous experience with friends

I understand that, people at uni want to only associate with you if you're doing well. It's like that in my course (I study law), they try and latch on people who are doing well and have them as a contact! It's quite sad, I really wanted to make good friends at uni but don't think it'll happen. My uni life has been so awful, hoping my third year is different!

And thank you for the message, really do appreciate you taking the time in responding to me...in detail! It's very appreciated! If you have any more tips about how to survive or do well at uni feel free to message me (if you're okay with that)

Good luck with everything!

Haha, your post brings about a couple more tips

In terms of friends, avoid making friends from your course! Most of my really good friends were from outside my course, flatmates and people in my job. Grades and work usually brings out the worst out of people, which is why flatmates make the best/most long term friends. You know what they say about not mixing personal and "professional" life
There's also this rule in politics that goes: "Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests". Same goes for people in your course, if they can't see an interest in hanging out with you, then they won't. So don't give them a reason to look down on you. Keep up with your lectures, start coursework as soon as it's given. Since you're doing law, do some reading that no one else is doing and start talking about it, you'll quickly grab their interest. A thing that worked for me is back when I lived in the halls, I got to know some friends and friends of friends who were a year above. These were really good contacts as they'd give me some past papers solutions that the rest of my class doesn't have ...etc. which made people approach me about it...etc.
Basically, work harder, it'll pay off both academically and socially. Like in my case where everything just fell together. Things tend to go either full on good, or full on bad most of the time.

Other thing that was helpful for me on TSR was actually this thread that used to go around here called how to get a 1st class or something like that. That thing is a pot of gold and has lots of superb advice that I have used.
There was also this other thread specifically for law, do look it up!

To continue my previous post...
Mainly because of financial issues, I decided to work the most in my part time job in first and second year since they count for 0 and 18% respectively in my course, and lower my hours later in my course.
So it went this way:
1st year: 20 hrs/wk + full time work in xmas/easter/summer
2nd year: 18 hrs/wk + full time work in xmas/easter/summer
3rd year: 8 hrs/wk throughout the year
4th year: quit my job from October

My job wasn't the only reason my results improved though, I changed lots of things both in terms of study, revision and exam techniques.
Some modules that I didn't necessarily understand from the lecturer and the lecture notes, I would read books that explain it differently, or read lecture notes from other unis both inside and outside the UK. Some world reknown unis such as MIT and oxbridge publish their lecture notes online for all free to use. I also found this really good youtube channel that broadcasts engineering lectures about every imaginable engineering topic online. Their lecturers are more in depth and cover more content. I found this particularly helpful as lectures here in the UK are too short and only give you what you need if that. But lectures in other parts of the world give a lot more context which works really well for me.
So my tip here is that different people learn differently, some teaching techniques might work on you and not others. Uni is an amazing experience in which I really learnt how to self study and look for the information I need outside the scope of my particular course/uni, and look for the type of teaching and content that suits my kind of learning. One main difference from school is that you shouldn't rely on one source of information (your lecturer) and explore the many other resources available to you (mostly free online).
In terms of exam techniques, I used to only answer questions when I fully know the answer. DON'T! Always make an educated guess, and write what you remember that closely matches the question even if it's not complete. Something is ALWAYS better than nothing. The person marking you can't give you marks for something that you didn't write. Do that especially if a question looks really hard as most of your peers wouldnt have answered it fully neither, so in terms of moderation, marks will be given for (almost) writing anything that merely approaches the answer.
Other thing is, failing an exam is only a failure if YOU let it be that. I always made sure I asked for my scripts back for exams I didn't do well in to see where I can improve, what can change, and also to understand what the person marking was looking for etc. This helped me loads with improving my grades in later years.

To continue my previous post...
Mainly because of financial issues, I decided to work the most in my part time job in first and second year since they count for 0 and 18% respectively in my course, and lower my hours later in my course.
So it went this way:
1st year: 20 hrs/wk + full time work in xmas/easter/summer
2nd year: 18 hrs/wk + full time work in xmas/easter/summer
3rd year: 8 hrs/wk throughout the year
4th year: quit my job from October

My job wasn't the only reason my results improved though, I changed lots of things both in terms of study, revision and exam techniques.
Some modules that I didn't necessarily understand from the lecturer and the lecture notes, I would read books that explain it differently, or read lecture notes from other unis both inside and outside the UK. Some world reknown unis such as MIT and oxbridge publish their lecture notes online for all free to use. I also found this really good youtube channel that broadcasts engineering lectures about every imaginable engineering topic online. Their lecturers are more in depth and cover more content. I found this particularly helpful as lectures here in the UK are too short and only give you what you need if that. But lectures in other parts of the world give a lot more context which works really well for me.
So my tip here is that different people learn differently, some teaching techniques might work on you and not others. Uni is an amazing experience in which I really learnt how to self study and look for the information I need outside the scope of my particular course/uni, and look for the type of teaching and content that suits my kind of learning. One main difference from school is that you shouldn't rely on one source of information (your lecturer) and explore the many other resources available to you (mostly free online).
In terms of exam techniques, I used to only answer questions when I fully know the answer. DON'T! Always make an educated guess, and write what you remember that closely matches the question even if it's not complete. Something is ALWAYS better than nothing. The person marking you can't give you marks for something that you didn't write. Do that especially if a question looks really hard as most of your peers wouldnt have answered it fully neither, so in terms of moderation, marks will be given for (almost) writing anything that merely approaches the answer.
Other thing is, failing an exam is only a failure if YOU let it be that. I always made sure I asked for my scripts back for exams I didn't do well in to see where I can improve, what can change, and also to understand what the person marking was looking for etc. This helped me loads with improving my grades in later years.