I can't do this

[Vickymumof4]

I am a mature 2nd year student nurse and am feeling like I just can't do it ! I have an assignment due in this week and I'm just not getting it. I have had tutorials etc and come away feeling really positive but when I sit down to write I just don't have a clue where to start. I have sat at the lap top for 8 hours solid today and managed 200 words at most. I feel really overwhelmed at the moment and know that I will not have 4000 words done by Friday. I really feel like quitting but it's all I've ever wanted to do. I love being out on placements and manage great with really good feedback from mentors etc but I'm just not academic. Assignments just finish me off. Anyone have antuadvice please.

Email your personal tutor - perhaps you could arrange an extension? Are you on placement or in uni atm? Would an extension be helpful? (And just accept the lower mark, if that's what your university do.)

Have you done the research already, or are you still doing that? Write a plan, very general at first, and then make each bit more specific. Do it in chunks and give yourself a little reward at the end of each bit! And just try to get something written, now matter how crap - easier to polish something up than produce perfection first time.

Good luck!

If you have any kind of health issues (including anxiety), however minor, definitely let your college know. I have needed an extension due to depression/anxiety affecting my motivation to study and it has meant that I don't get penalised. They will want some medical evidence, you could probably see your GP this week. Also check your uni website to see what their policy on extensions are. My old uni would grant 5 day extensions pretty much on request, without the need for further evidence, as long as a tutor approved it.

If you're not able to do that, definitely try to submit what you can, even if it's just notes. If you're doing well in other areas you can survive with a dodgy module mark as long as it's a pass.

Thank you. I have done a plan and had already done the research so that has helped. I've managed to get to 2800 words today ( mostly crap lol) but have made sure I have covered a bit of each criteria. Hopefully tomorrow I can reach the 4000 mark and then start to refine it and do reference list ready for Friday night submission. Definitely not my best but hopefully will scrape a pass. I did pass my drugs calculations exam today which gave me a bit more motivation!

Well done , i also have 2500 words to write by next Friday , i'm only about 800 in and already my plan is looking largely redundant!

2800 is brilliant!

We always get a +/- 10% word count, so if I were you I'd be thinking that I only had to get to 3600

And well done on your drug calculation test

Sounds like you're actually doing really well!

Another vote here for making use of flexibility in the word count. Sometimes just doing it as a mental trick helps!

Are you a better talker than a writer? If you had to explain your assignment verbally to someone would you find it easier?

It sounds absurd, and you will possibly feel somewhat foolish doing it, but I find when I'm really stuck that I can get my brain going by having a conversation with myself about the assignment. I've even, when desperate, recorded it and played it back to pull out themes/make a plan.

Ohdearlord that sounds like a great idea ! I am much much better talking about things than writing them down. I have got on better today but what I have written is quite repetitive and a bit jumbled to say the least but with a bit more work I can hopefully get it to make sense.

that's great :-) It's so much easier to work on something that is already there, even if it's not where you'd like it to be than to be staring at a blank screen!