Mature student - struggling at my degree

[SleeplessByTheSeaside]

I'm in the 2nd year of a science degree. I'm one of a tiny minority of mature students at my uni and the only one on my course with children.

Since starting my degree life has kept getting in the way - trying to work as well as study, children having issues at school, two bereavements........I've ended up feeling depressed and exhausted. I can't focus or concentrate and in lectures, it all goes in one ear and out the other. I gave up my part time job but I'm still struggling. I don't know what to do. The uni are not tremendously supportive of mature students, and suggested that I either take a year off (but didn't know how this might affect my fees/funding) or drop out altogether.

If I take a year off or drop out, I will be back at square one - unqualified and unemployed, with no job prospects except for basic admin or retail.

I've just been gritting my teeth and hanging on in there as I've only 1 more year to go....but currently I have exams looming and I'm sure I'm going to fail them. I'm trying to revise but can't concentrate at all, and can barely string a sentence together when I try to write. (I used to be really good at researching info and writing essays). It's like my brain just isn't working properly.

I feel quite alone and pretty miserable. My experience has left me feeling that I've chosen the wrong uni and the wrong course, but it's too late to change it now. Of course on the open day they really sold it to me, and implied that they always have plenty of mature students on the course when I asked. What are my options?

First thing is to make it to the end of this academic year and get through your exams.
Do you have a tutor you could talk too? Or a student counselling service?

After that could you look at switching to another university that might be more supportive of mature students? Even then, you'll still have deadlines to meet etc. So it might be best to grit your teeth and aim to get through next year as well.

Keep going. It's not easy. But it will be worthwhile.

How important is it that you finish this year? If you've had bereavements and are struggling you should have been able to defer some of the workload but you'd need to speak to your tutors and you'll need to provide evidence of those bereavements.
If they don't know you're struggling, then they can't help you.

If you're worried about the exams, it is usually a case that if you don't pass the exams, you may be able to retake them, so that's worth investigating too.

I didn't enjoy my first year as a mature student much when I went back to education after working for the best part of 20 years. I had to get the younger students to coach me in the art of essay-writing, but I did find that there were other mature students around who shared the difficulties and made it bearable. Science is hard, but it is often logical. After I'd got over that initial hurdle I found I really enjoyed the work.

When I did my post-graduate degree I changed the way I studied a few months in so that I became a part-time rather than a full-time student which meant fewer modules, and fewer exams per term. That made it far more manageable.

I can only reiterate that it is far better to speak to your tutors than to struggle and suffer in silence. They may have some revision strategies that you can make use of, they are likely to have a number of suggestions as to how to make it bearable.

I went and did a science degree in my 40's too and now have a great career out of it. I'm now 55.
They are not sympathetic of adult students at all. The best way to get any help is to smile a lot and go and see your tutor and say look I've had a few problems (don't go into it, they don't care) and would there be any possibility of a few private sessions with you to help me get back on track.
Keep it upbeat and remember to behave like an adult at all times, it's easy to revert to schoolgirl I know.
If they can't help you then I suggest you decide right now wether to take either a year off to sort your life out or leave and do something else.
It sounds as though you should take a year off, you then have time to read up on all your previous work and get it all into your head before trying again.
Don't give up, I have never regretted doing this degree.
What is it by the way? What field?

Thanks for the replies, and the encouragement is really helpful. I have already had to defer some exams and coursework until later in the year. So I will need to complete that as well to be counted as passing this year.
I am just in a terrible panic about the exams. My memory has become really bad and I can't seem to retain any new information (probably due to stress/depression). I have a personal tutor who is very nice, but other than offering a bit of sympathy if I ask to see her, she can't do much else.
I am going to try and do my exams. I need some miracle way to boost my cognitive function, just for a few weeks!!

I feel sad that I'm finding my degree so difficult and it's making me feel so miserable. Normally I enjoy learning, and enjoyed the access course I did prior to starting the degree, even though I found it tough going at times.
But more and more crap seems to keep happening in my personal life since I started the actual degree :(

Does your university have an academic skills unit (or similar title)?
They should've running sessions on revision tips at this time of year.

Do try talking to your tutor again if there are specific parts of the curriculum you need help with.

Watch a couple of videos on YouTube on study techniques, ones that fit your chosen subject (for example if it's 'law' you do that differently than 'math'). Use "Cornell notes" for note-taking. It's worth investing a couple of hours in learning these things. There are also memory techniques for remembering things, like the loci method, used since Roman times (hence works). For me, it works best to study in the morning. I've taken a huge number of classes (more than I care to mention). If it's math involved, you will need to practice on typical examples, and if you haven't read Polya's book "how to solve it", do it now.

What topic is it, by the way? You're not "outing" yourself by mentioning what classes you're struggling with as most people "struggle" in most classes...

Can you break the work down into bite size sections, and tackle one at a time? For example, write one paragraph of an essay, read and make notes on one page of a textbook? Set yourself small, achievable targets, and stop for a break before you begin to feel overwhelmed.

Make sure you are eating well, getting enough fluids, enough fresh air and exercise and enough sleep. Stop work an hour before bedtime and read something light and fluffy (I recommend Georgette Heyer) or do some handcrafts. An hour's good sleep is worth more than an hour staring at a page in a textbook taking nothing in.

Good luck!

OK, you need to make a list & take some action - even small steps towards helping yourself, and bringing in support will help your sense of feeling overwhelmed.

1. Students Union: Welfare office, and check if there's a Mature Students group or society, or other such resources. It will help if you can find a group of people who know what you're going through.

1. Counselling service: the one at my place runs group[s for people feeling stress to the point that it gets in the way of effective studying (a bit of stress can be good for you; too much is paralysing).

1. Tutors. I suspect you won't know oir like this, but the problems you're facing are pretty standard. All students have lives and stuff happens. If we know about it, then we can rearrange things, or tell you when they can't be rearranged. Approach a sympathetic tutor or your Director of STudies or your Personal TUtor, and have a chat with them. Just by letting them know you may well feel a bit of the burden lifted, and we've heard it all before. WE will have strategies for you.

1. A year (or less) leave of absence might not be a bad thing, if you are suffering a combination of things which mean you are not able to do the course effectively. Tough love bit coming up while most experienced academic staff & administrators are sympathetic about the extraordinary events in students' lives, we also really need students to be studying the course. You can't get a degree via mitigation.

So it might be something to think about - it's not wholly unusual to take a gap year in the middle of a degree rather than before or after.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice so far! I will take it on board and try and work out some strategies for myself. I'm studying Biology, for those who asked. There is over 100 people on my course so tutors really aren't keen on requests for extra help etc.

You can't get a degree via mitigation. - I understand, and I have been doing the work - apart from a few things which I had to defer due to my mum's funeral taking place during an exam week, I have been completing my assignments. Also the staff who deal with mitigation tend to be quite unsympathetic, I'm sure they see all sorts of personal issues so it's all in a day's work for them, but I felt pretty crappy after being denied extra time to complete an assignment after the death of another family member in my 1st year. :(

I am seeing a counsellor already. I'm thinking of seeing my GP next week for antidepressants (have taken them before, not sure they did much, but it's worth another go...)

My deepest sympathies OP. It won't help to hear this, but if you were my student you'd be getting ample support after one bereavement, let alone two. If you haven't had sufficient deferral of assignments it may be that they're not stitching together all the issues you've had. Can you find out who's responsible for extenuating circumstances (departmental tutor?) and write directly to them? Ideally there'll be a simple form you can complete to set out your issues. I'm not surprised you're struggling. For what it's worth we had a student who lost her mum, shortly followed by a grandparent. She was permitted extensive extra time and ended up doing very well in her assessments.

How old are you op? You could be perimenopausal which can make your thinking foggy, it also affect memory, comprehension and speech. I have upped my vitamins and sorted my diet out and these symptoms have improved.

Just a thought if you are in your 40s

OP it really sounds as though you're having to cope with crap above & beyond ...

Would you think about a leave of absence, just to regroup and breathe?

The other thing would be to make a broader case about the specific things you've faced this year as long as you haven't already received some form of mitigation for them as a cumulative case, and maybe see iof you can get resits (as first sit ie not capped) in August/September?

floatingfrog I'm early 30s so hope I'm not perimenopausal! It did cross my mind though as I think my mum went through menopause fairly early (but obviously she is not around for me to ask now ). I'm concerned I may have an underactive thyroid which includes some of the same symptoms, but my GP just fobbed me off about my brainfog and permanent tiredness, even though they previously tested my thyroid hormone levels and said it was 'borderline'. I'm taking iron and some other supplements. However I really don't know if my foggy thinking and memory issues are due to an underlying physical cause, or due to prolonged periods of stress and the resulting depression.

impostersydrome thank you for your kind words. I did go and see someone about mitigating circumstances after my mum died (her death was very sudden and unexpected), so that department has been a bit more helpful since.

As PP have outlined the Uni should have a strategy to support you.

On a self-care level ensure you're getting high doses of vit B12 and D3 - deficiency can cause brain fog

Biology is a topic where you probably have to remember a lot of disparate stuff for the tests. You might enjoy to watch this video, it's a talk about memory techniques given at the Charles Darwin University (on the YouTube IMPSatCDU channel). The talk is called "Jonas von Essen - How to Get An Awesome Memory". (He's a world champion on memory techniques.) He also mentions in passing a book called "Memo: The Easiest Way to Improve Your Memory" by Oddbjorn By. I have the book. It's really useful. Someone wrote about the book on Amazon: "Thanks for a life-changing book. It saved me when I was in trouble. In my second year of university I failed on two exams. I panicked. But then I read about your book, and that made the whole difference! Fantastic!"

Also, do you use Flaschards? There are sites where you can put Flashcards online, and that way you can study on your phone when you're on the move and use short snippets of time for studying or rehearsing.

You might also want to organize your note taking along the lines of Cornell Notes, it's a special techniques for effective note taking. There's one example (amongh thousands) about "Taking Cornell Notes in AP Biology" on the Michael Laudersmith YouTube channel. I don't know why I wasn't taught this technique back in school. Not having good study techniques made me flunk nearly all exams during my first year at university, and depression made me stop studying altogether, until I realized I couldn't have it that way - and regrouped.

One thing to also know about is that repeated test taking is very efficient for learning, even if you have to go and look up the answer from your books in order to reply to those questions. Reading a text over and over again is not. So you might want to work on problem solving as much as possible rather than just read stuff a repeated number of times.

Finally, if there's a concept you don't grasp, you might want to look at e.g. Khan Academy on YouTube. Even if you're working on something complex, like Adenosine triphosphate, it's on that channel. The channel is huge. The MIT and other universities also have a lot of stuff online 'published under the creative commons license' so you might well look into that if your own lecturer isn't any good.

If you watch these two videos today, the ones about memory techniques and note taking, and also check out whether flashcards is something for you (I've been using Cram.com but there are other providers) you might well have improved your study technique tremendously or at least found a path forward. Also, if your current class feels tricky, check out if you can find something useful on the study topic on the Khan Academy channel, and see if it helps. Even if it's something like Adenosine triphosphate, a rather narrow topic it would seem, it's there - on Khan Academy.

Maybe you then won't need those antidepressants. Also, you're just thirty years old, so it's not likely you have a worse memory than anyone else even though for time pressure you might want to be well organized when taking classes. (Says the one who takes classes on the side rather continuously, it's my hobby.)

fiftyplustwo, thanks for your helpful tips. I do feel like I've not properly grasped a lot of concepts this term, so I'm having to go over and over a lot of things when I should just be refreshing them through revision. I haven't had a problem getting to grips with learning things in the past, but I think being under such pressure from personal issues is handicapping me. I feel overloaded!

I went to see the pastoral support person at uni - she said to just try my best at the exams, and if I fail I will be allowed to re-take them.

I thought going to a bigger, Russell group uni would mean a higher quality course, but it feels like we're all just being churned along a conveyor belt. At the risk of sounding a bit self-pitying, the uni doesn't care at all if any students have difficulties or have to drop out, as they have plenty of students left on the course even if the drop out rate is high. I get the impression that they would prefer students to drop out than have to provide any extra support; many staff make you feel like a bit of an inconvenience! I certainly haven't been given any encouragement to stay on the course (it's been the opposite, if anything).

Sleepless I was nearly halfway through my degree when my Dad died (Mum had died many years previously). I deferred some things and managed to wade through. Once I'd finished that, I went on to do a Masters', during which my two remaining elderly relatives were hospitalised, I had to get POA in place whilst sorting out payments on their rent, rates, bills, and liaising with hospital staff. Then one of the relatives died. I went p/t on my course and managed to get there.
I was fortunate enough that it was a small course and my lecturers were both supportive and helpful.
Mine was science-based too and at times it felt like wading through treacle. I did find that trying to teach/coach others was a great way to learn, but there may not always be opportunities to do this.
Your uni sounds like they just don't want to put in the effort, which is very unfair on the student body. It seems to me that if you're a mature student you're just expected to 'get on with it' in a lot of cases.

My 'speciality' is conservation, which falls into science (soils, photosynthesis and all the other stuff I've forgotten), so if there is anything you think I can help with, feel free to PM me.