Oct 2002, on I'd have been at the start of my final year of my degree, as a 32 yr mature student, so dropping my son to school (or a classmate if I needed to make a much earlier start and then after uni picking up my 7 yr old from school or after school club, depending on my last lecture, we'd have caught the bus home (didn't learn to drive till after I graduated), maybe picked up shopping, made dinner, homework, bedtime (sometimes all unavoidably late, I was a single parent) etc, so by this time at night I'd be attempting to study!
Always started the new semester determined to keep up with everything from the start! I'd likely be doing research for whatever essay/report/presntations we had coming our way. At this stage I'd also be reading through the lecture notes, rewriting the notes, attempting to get a head start in books/texts, before realising (as I did with every new semester) that this level just doesn't continue, as the time I had was so limited! Still worked hard every night and during then day in between classes, and everything did get done and handed in in time, but revision for each Modules exams at the end of semester is when I went all out super-psycho and basically didn't sleep, due to not having the time to keep up with the extra reDing etc. This was my fifth semester by now and I still went in with all these good intentions and still ran out of time and resorted to mad sessions of 10/12hr study sessions with no break trying to transcribe (all!) books down in to notes and al other sources needed. I went all out crazy in the couple of weeks before exams due to the lack of time Needed to read all these books/notes I needed for the exams.
Each semester I tried so hard to do a bit everyday, so I'd have currently still been in the optimistic phase of thinking I could do it, this yr would be better, even though I hadn't for the previous two years!
I'd spend pretty much all my time doing the research for the reports:essays/presentations/computer based work etc that needed to be done and marked throughout the semester. Already by just a couple of weeks in there would be piles of paper all over the tables and the floor and my son was quite used to 'not treading there' and not touching anything 😁 I also recall this was the time that I really had done nowhere near enough for my dissertation as I should have done. Oops. It got there in the end tho :)
Really not a very exciting time, but a very busy and enjoyable time. And despite my odd way of working (which didn't change throughout, but blocks of studying only intensified before exam periods). Something must have worked 'cos I got my First so that was all I wanted and achieved it :)