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GeolPhysics' Difficult Road To Graduation Along With Psychosis Experience

GeolPhysics

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I haven't seen one of these threads on university. So I'll start one.

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I had mixed grades in 1st and 2nd year.

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So far, my grades aren't looking too good. I have ADDC for my third year first semester.

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I have finished my third year but not done any of my second semester exams yet due to psychosis getting in the way twice.

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Last year, I heard voices and had to be taken into hospital in March and this year I had to go into hospital for two months from March to May.

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I hope to graduate from Aberdeen University on a BSc (Hons) Geology and Physics degree.

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My nurse and family want me to transfer to a local university in Glasgow but they don't do a joint honours which may make me bored if I transfer for fourth year. Anyway, I hope to at least get a third or a 2.2 at university.

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My study method is getting improved, I hope to do all the past papers available (I used to only do a selection of them) and do some reading.

Any help on studying would be much appreciated. It took me a while to be brave enough to reveal my grades (I used to hide them and be ashamed of them if my friends asked.)

(edited 4 years ago)

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

brainzistheword

Study Forum Helper, Careers Forum Helper

Original post by GeolPhysics

•

I haven't seen one of these threads on university. So I'll start one.

•

I had mixed grades in 1st and 2nd year.

•

So far, my grades aren't looking too good. I have ADDC for my third year first semester.

•

I have finished my third year but not done any of my second semester exams yet due to psychosis getting in the way twice.

•

Last year, I heard voices and had to be taken into hospital in March and this year I had to go into hospital for two months from March to May.

•

I hope to graduate from Aberdeen University on a BSc (Hons) Geology and Physics degree.

•

My study method is getting improved, I hope to do all the past papers available (I used to only do a selection of them) and do some reading.

Any help on studying would be much appreciated. It took me a while to be brave enough to reveal my grades (I used to hide them and be ashamed of them if my friends asked.)

Hey, good luck with your course - you can do this! :hugs:

How have you got on this week? :smile:

Reply 2

GeolPhysics

Original post by brainzistheword

Hey, good luck with your course - you can do this! :hugs:

How have you got on this week? :smile:

I've done well. My nurse set me on a 30 minute per day studying schedule for the week. And I've been hitting that goal. I'm also meeting out with friends to have a bit more work life balance (didn't do much of that until the NHS got involved).

Reply 3

brainzistheword

Study Forum Helper, Careers Forum Helper

Original post by GeolPhysics

That’s amazing, well done!

I’ll keep an eye on your thread and look forward to future updates :smile:

Reply 4

GeolPhysics

I've done my first tutorial sheet, all eleven questions. I've got five tutorial sheets left. Binned all six the last time I was at hospital because I wanted to drop out. Now, I'm re-doing them because my senses have come back and I realise that dropping out of my degree isn't a smart choice. I really wish to complete my degree and get that certificate. Sometimes I feel like I'm rushing in my head to complete university. My body doesn't work on the goals as fast as my mind thinks them.

I think the first tutorial sheet took more than a month to do. I don't know what to do if each tutorial sheet takes this long to do. I'd be way behind schedule with past papers still to do. When the lecturer first set it, it only took me two weeks. I've done revision cards of the first tutorial sheet too. I'm taking a break for a week on my work because I'm feeling overwhelmed by doing driving theory revision and piano practice for my grade 8 exam. I also worked on some health goals which included cutting out a lot of junk food. It's worked for the past two weeks but this week the junk food came back. :frown:

Unsure of what to do, I'm going to turn to my visiting nurse tomorrow. Work-life balance has been worked on and it's been fine. I've been watching/reading about the news everyday and I'm learning about the world this way (something I used to never do).

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 5

GeolPhysics

I've done three tutorial sheets now and more than half of the fourth one. I keep thinking that I'll fail my exams though because there aren't many repeated questions in past papers. I'm not very good at problem solving and just rely on memorized methods. Got myself three private tutors for both courses. If I can't do this degree we'll, I might transfer to Earth Science in Glasgow. Something less on the Physics side since I'm finding that difficult. I hope to continue to have private tutors though. Work-life balance was bad this week. I kept replying to tutors on email and text instead of taking a break from the work.

Reply 6

GeolPhysics

I'm much more confident today. I have two private tutors for Physics and one for Geology. I feel like I actually understand the past papers now. My lecturer doesn't check over my past paper answers which is the only problem. I can never really tell if what my tutors have done is right. But what they've done, I understand. I have a bit of a problem trusting that my tutors are right but I have to get over that. I ask questions whenever I'm stuck.

My family are also supportive of me going to my current uni and my psychosis hasn't came back.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 7

Toastiekid

Glad to hear you’re understanding things now and you’re family are supportive of you :hugs:

Have a good week :wink:

Reply 8

GeolPhysics

I'm also thinking of doing part time study instead of full time when I get to 4th year. Seems like I didn't have enough time to complete all the past papers in the past which affected my grades.

Reply 9

GeolPhysics

I'm taking a break for Christmas and I'm going abroad with my family. So far I've done most of the tutorial sheets. A past paper and a half for Physics and three quarters of the papers for Geology. The private tutors I have help me with the questions and they have been a great help.

Reply 10

GeolPhysics

I took a break from revision and seemed to have forgotten 70% of the things I learned. It's really frustrating that I need to go over the things again.

Reply 11

GeolPhysics

These days I've been struggling with not being happy about my 1st semester grades. I'm not going to resit them but I hope my future grades are better than those.

Reply 12

GeolPhysics

I did my Quantum Mechanics exam for physics two weeks ago. It went really well and I'm sure I passed! The private tutors have really been a great help for revision. My next exam is seismology and it's in July.

Reply 13

GeolPhysics

I got a A and D for two of my courses. Means that I have enough credits to get into fourth year. Sat my seismology exam early in June instead. I just have one more exam to sit next May then that's all the third year exams done. My mental health has been a lot better since August 2019. Only one occurance of the voices in January 2020 when I was on a flight.

Reply 14

GeolPhysics

I had a really relaxing summer. I just spent time talking with my friends and playing musical instruments. Giving myself a well-earned break.

I still don't know what I got for my seismology exam, my lecturer says it's not a priority yet so I think I'll wait until January or February to contact him again about it. I really want to make sure I've passed all my third year exams before I go into 4th year next September. My next exam is Electrity and Magnetism and it's Physics based. I contacted the Information Centre and they said all exams in 2nd semester are online and open book but then I contacted my lecturer and he said he didn't know...

So far I've done two tutorial sheets for Electricity and Magnetism, two midterm exam practice papers and almost a full past paper.

I also did a grade 8 piano exam in August and spent the prior 10 months preparing for it. I got 116/150 which is a pass. 100 is the pass mark. I plan to do the ARSM piano diploma after I graduate from University and release an album of cover songs at some point.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 15

brainzistheword

Study Forum Helper, Careers Forum Helper

Original post by GeolPhysics

Glad to hear you had a good summer! :yes:

Hope you manage to find out how your exam went and good luck with your upcoming ones. Congratulations on your Grade 8 piano too!! That's amazing - I've been saying for a while that I need to pick up the piano playing again, but just haven't got round to it :colondollar:

Looking forward to future updates!

Reply 16

GeolPhysics

I got a D for my seismology exam.

I've done 4 out of the 8 tutorial sheets for Electricity and Magnetism and all 10 midterm practice papers. Haven't progressed any more on the final exam past papers though.

Christmas break is going well. I'm spending more time with my family and I'm in a tier 4 area which means I'm staying at home a lot.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 17

GeolPhysics

I've done all tutorial sheets and all the past papers in preparation for the final exam of third year. Some questions don't have answers that have full marks yet so I'm gonna look for help on that.

So far, I've recorded 6 songs for my album and I want the album to have 10 tracks in total. Have a big problem with the editing for the 6th track so I think I'm just gonna let that track go and keep the other 5. So album is half recorded. I think I need to hire a sound engineer at some point to mix/master the album. But I'll do that once I've recorded all the tracks. Taking a break from that now until the summer when I've done my exams.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 18

GeolPhysics

Realized that I need to do textbook problem solving work to get a better at the basics of the course but since the start of the course I have been unable to do it because I can't solve those questions even after reading the text. My old tutor said I need a tutor to go through these textbook questions with me because they're hard to tackle on your own. But he didn't want to work on past papers with me so I wanted to move on to a different tutor. I found a new tutor yesterday but he's not been responsive today. I still haven't done a single question from the textbook and it's mid-March. Getting quite worried about progress even though I've done everything else. Not had any progress on getting full marks for each past paper question.

I've read two booklets worth of reading which was printed out from the uni course materials.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 19

GeolPhysics

I got a C in my Electricity and Magnetism exam. Managed to do all the past papers and tutorial sheets in the end. Then sat my two continuous assessments, midterm exam and final exam. So that’s finally all my third year exams passed!

Last month after my exams, I applied for a bursary for an online songwriting retreat. I got the bursary and spent a good four days collaborating, attending a masterclass and a few workshops. Here is a tune that came from that: https://youtu.be/TJEE7Itq2gE

I did a few Prince’s Trust online courses this month to do with wellbeing, teamwork and managing feelings. Seem to be useful for overall wellbeing which I’ll take in mind for my general mental health.

I have laser eye surgery coming up near the end of the month so will have to recover from that before I can do anything else. I’m planning to sign up to weekly exercise classes after I recover but haven’t searched for which kind of exercises I’d like to do yet.

My hay fever has been really bad these few days with a blocked nose and itchy eyes. I hope it goes away. The medicine only helps with my itchy eyes and I got a new nasal spray today but it doesn’t seem to help…

I’m looking forward to going into fourth year in September as a part-time student. My parents are ok with it as long as I stay with them in Glasgow when I’m not in classes. So there will be travelling to Aberdeen for classes and working on my courses in Glasgow.