I'm doing a full time Masters - argh! woo hoo! etc

[TanyaBranning]

So... when my contract at work (been working full time for the last 6 months, have 1 yr old and a 4 yr old), I will be a lady of leisure until Jan, when I will embrak on a full time Masters.

Very excited / scared.

Any tips on how to organise myself?

I will be studying 2 & a half days a week and have a day a week placement.

when my contract ends, that should have said

just make sure your childcare is watertight, and that you have enough cover for additional study/ related stuff in excess of your taught hours.

i found that the expectation of ft masters students was that they would be available for additional tutor meetings/ group project work/ etc etc for the entire 5 day week. i found it quite hard to be part of the group, and yet not part of the group (not socialising in the bar etc etc)
of course, if the majority of students are married/ w kids etc then this will be the norm. my course were mostly singles, some of whom were career change, but some straight-through from first degree.

and actually, just be organised lol. i'm just not - i put my kids and dh first for everything, and then find i am woefully neglecting what i really ought to be concentrating on at a personal level - ie study. tis a problem.

good luck!

Hi!

Have just started my Master's - am about a month and a half in - with a 3 1/2 year old and a 1 1/2 year old. DC's are in nursery 2 1/2 days a week and I have classes 3 afternoons a week. The other 2 mornings I use for studying.

It is tough! But yes, if you are organised then you can do it. Also, I've found I have to prioritise. DH doesn't cook beyond heating a frozen pizza, so I have had to accept that the DC's will be eating pizza / pasta and ready sauce etc on the evenings that he collects them. In fact I have just had to accept that our diet has been reduced to 50% convenience for this year - not ideal (have always been a big cook) but this is a 1 year project and it's worth it.

Do you have an OH and how flexible is your OH in terms of duties with the children etc? My DH has to fetch the children on certain days, and then there are occasions when classes get moved (today for example, he is having to work from home because my Tuesday class was moved to this afternoon for this week and the dc's don't go to nursery on a Thursday).

I did have grand plans to study in the evening once the dc's are asleep, but we also moved country for me to do this and they have been very unsettled. So I shifted my day round a bit so I often go to bed the same time as them (round about 8pm at the moment) and then wake up at 5am to study a few hours before they wake. (This doesn't always happen, sometimes I wake up at 11pm all refreshed to do stuff for a few hours and then of course am knackered the next morning - we're still trying to find our rhythm!)

And yes, it's hard switching between days of being a full-time mum and days of being a full-time student. And it can also be hard to watch everyone troop off for a pint at the end of a 4 hour afternoon lecture on a Friday and you have to rush off to pick up children, get them home, cook supper, bathtime, bedtime etc (me, bitter? Nah...!)

Good luck - I do feel at times as though I am holding together a skyscraper in a tornado with blu tac, but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end!

Well done you. I'm thinking of doing one having completed a degree with the OU but will probably do it part time for now.

Just wanted to say... well done... keep going!

Oh I want to do one too
but is full time and I woudl have to live away from home during hte week

lol skivingviking - your life sounds a lot like mine

my favourite day was turning up for my first lecture having already dropped three children at two schools in different counties (having painted one purple for book character day), called in at the hospital to collect eye drops for dd2's appointment the following day, (with associated parking trauma), taken said eye drops home to refrigerate, and driven to dh's work to swop cars in the car park so he had the car seats, then driven the forty minutes to uni. everyone else strolled in having got out of bed ten minutes previously.

holding together a skyscraper in a tornado sounds about right . it's my new favourite expression.