Master’s degree!

Hello again everyone, I hope you are well and don’t have one of those colds that seem to be going around that I have. I am going to go straight onto the subject of this blog entry today and talk about the master’s degree I applied to – MA Personnel and Human Resource Management. In which I have only gone and gotten myself an offer for! It’s only a conditional offer, and subject to me getting at least a 2:2 in my current degree, but in order to qualify for the funding for this programme for money off, I need to obtain at least a 2:1, which I am currently on track for (fingers crossed).

All I need to wait for now is notification to see if I have the available funding, so again, fingers crossed that hopefully I should get that as well. It means that I am trying to save as much as possible to cover the cost of it, which is proving harder than I expected because things cost an awful lot. One thing that should be saving me money each month is my phone contract. I had to have an issue resolved a few weeks ago, and when I was on the phone, the person I was speaking to said that I appeared to be on an old tariff where I was paying £37.50 per month, but she could move me to a new tariff where I will get the exact same deal, but for £27 per month, and I would still keep the same upgrade date as well. It was an unexpected, but appreciated deal!

I can tell already that this term is going to be a long one, not only do I have my dissertation to complete (getting questionnaires back is proving to be harder than I thought) I also have several other assignments to complete alongside my dissertation, so hopefully I should be able to manage. I do have a friend though that is always asking for help the day before the assignment is due (mainly because they haven’t started it yet) and I have decided that I am no longer going to assist, I have my own degree to focus on, and they should manage their time better.

Anyway, I hope you are all managing your time well and not relying on other people to carry you through your degree (I’m sure you aren’t) but I wish you all the best with any work you may be doing, until next time everyone! :)

Finally some feedback!

Hello there everyone, I hope you are well and settling into the new term. As you may remember from my last blog entry, I was complaining about not having received any grades back for this year so wasn’t sure if I was on track or not, but since that post, I have received two grades back, finally! And I am pleased to say they are both rather good, 70% and 72% respectively. If I can keep receiving grades like that, then I shall be very happy indeed! The grades that I have been waiting on, however, have still not been put up, which is slightly frustrating, but at least I have some kind of feedback.

An opportunity has also come up for me to complete a master’s degree that comes with quite a good discount. I have been thinking about doing a master’s degree for a while now and in a previous blog (last year I think) I mentioned about studying one in Sweden as it was free, but I would still have needed money for living costs. I will still need to save up some money in order to pay my tuition fees, but I don’t think I’ll get another opportunity to do this again at such low a cost. Although I would still like to travel, I am not sure if I can afford to be able to travel and save up for a master’s degree at the same, so my travel resolutions for 2014 may have to be postponed until the future. I mean I may not even get an offer, so I do not know what the future holds.

Whilst still on the subject of feedback, I have my dissertation feedback session today, which I will discuss with my tutor the next steps for my dissertation, scary stuff! It should be interesting nonetheless obtaining my own research and writing about it. I’ve never written anything near 10,000 words before, so it should be interesting to see how it goes.

Until next time, and make sure you wrap up warm when outside, and good luck with any work that you may have to complete! 

Happy New Year!

Hello there everyone, and welcome to 2014! I hope you are all well and had an enjoyable break. Are you all ready to embrace term two? I know it’s probably cliché to talk about new years’ resolutions, so I will keep it brief. I have decided that this year I will not have any resolutions because I never stick to them. This means that instead of being annoyed at myself for breaking a resolution, I will simply continue my life as normal. If I were to have any, I would just like to travel more. Something I have mentioned multiple times in previous blogs.

In university related news, I am a little bit peeved that I haven’t received any coursework grades back yet, so I have no idea how I am doing this year in terms of performance. Hopefully I am doing well, but I won’t know until I get them back… I think that the expected turn around date should be the same as a coursework deadline. If we have to submit by a certain date, then the people marking it should return it by a certain date. If students submit late we get penalised, but what happens when they are marked late? Nothing! For one piece of work, they are over a month late for the expected feedback return. Rant for this blog is over.

Hopefully not many of you are in the same position as I am and are on track and have good grades. It hasn’t quite settled in that I am due to graduate in June, a little over 5 months away! Scary stuff! Until next time everyone, take care and I look forward to keeping you up to date on my next entry.

I’m done! For now…

Hello there everyone, I hope you are well. As the title of this blog would indicate, I have finished all my term one assignments! I haven’t received any grades back for the work I’ve submitted, but I did have my dissertation ethics form approved, so I can go ahead and conduct my research for my dissertation once my literature feedback has been returned. Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve discussed what my dissertation topic is.

As you may or may not know, my degree is human resource management, and my dissertation will be looking into praise and reward relating to motivation in the workplace. It may not sound like the most interesting of topics, but it is important for managers to know the most effective ways of motivating their employees, and someone needs to do the research!

Steering the topic away from university for a while, it doesn’t feel like it is Christmas next week! I have found that the older I have gotten, the less I enjoy Christmas. As most of you will probably know, as a student you often do not have a lot of spare money, and as soon as December rolls around, I just sigh knowing that I have to buy presents. This year I have only gotten presents for the important people, and I’ve tried to spend under £10 per person, and it seems to have worked.

To the people I didn’t buy presents for, I sent them a personalised card. This brings me onto my next topic of post delivery. I don’t know about anyone else, but the post seems to be really slow recently. I don’t know if it’s the time of the year, but I sent a card to one of my friends who lives in the south of Germany, and at the same time sent a card to someone in Manchester. The card sent to Germany took 2 days to arrive, and the card to Manchester took 5… both sent first class.

This will most likely be the last entry of 2013, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, and I hope you all have a pleasant entry into 2014. Until next year everyone, and the best of luck with any work you may have remaining!

The year so far and plans for 2014

Hello again everyone, I hope you are all well and keeping your stress levels low, I can’t believe that it’s December already, there aren’t many days left now until it’s 2014! I’ve decided that things are going to be much better in 2014, and I will have a think about what resolutions I can make and aim to stick to them. 

So how has 2013 been for me. Well, as I’m sure every person at some point in the year, 2013 had its ups and downs. I managed to travel to two different places, Amsterdam in The Netherlands back in April, and California in the USA in June. Hopefully in 2014 I can expand upon my travel map which I wrote a blog about in August. I hope next year that I can do the inter-railing thing I spoke about and get to see more of Europe, and I would like to go to Canada at some point. This is all dependent on how my finances look for next year of course…

2013 is also the year that I passed the second year of my degree, and could continue into my final year. Hopefully I should be able to do the same this year to achieve my undergraduate degree in Human Resource Management. I’m hoping that I will be able to find a job upon completion of my degree so that I can have some money to do some travelling, but who knows what the future holds really.

The low points of 2013 include losing some important people in my life simply through drifting apart, which is an inevitable part of life, and as with the majority of students, there have also been points where I have had nearly no money and worried about how I would manage. Just because I don’t want to put a massive downer on this entry, I have also met some amazing new people this year who I hope will remain a part of my life for a long time, I have also become closer with some people who were at one point mere acquaintances. I hope they remain good friends with them into 2014. I also work as much as I can to make a bit of extra cash, and in 2014, I will be extra strict on my financial outgoings.

All in all, 2013 has not been a bad year, but I aim to make 2014 an even better one. I hope that you all have had a pleasant 2013, and if not, 2014 is a time for change. And as that saying goes, if you believe in yourself, you can achieve anything. 

November blues

Hello again everyone, I hope you are keeping well, and also keeping warm with the change in the

weather. November for me is turning out to be rather draining. Not only do I have my dissertation to do, I also have 5 other assignments to work on, and have been working as much as I can to try and get some extra money, which is leaving me feeling sleepy. That’s student life for you I guess, work work work!

Regarding the title for this blog entry, November really is a melancholy month. It is the lead up to winter, so it gets dark super early, it starts to get cold and wet. It’s also a rather busy period in terms of assignment submissions. Sticking to the cold theme, I really wish that my flatmate anpid I could afford to put the heating on. The one thing I miss about living in halls, all the bills are included, so you don’t have to worry about paying for the heating. We pretty much wear thick clothing all the time, as well as our pyjamas whenever possible.

I have the warmest dressing gown ever, and I love it! I wish it were socially acceptable to wear dressing gowns and pyjamas out on the street. Although saying that, several times when I have ventured out into the cold, I have seen several people wearing their pyjamas to do a bit of shopping. Clearly these are some people who have no shame. I mean don’t get me wrong; I enjoy pyjamas as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t actually wear them out in public.

At least I have managed to keep on top of my work so far… although I can picture myself over the upcoming month getting super stressed about everything. As long as I keep on track and don’t take days off, I should be fine.

I hope you are all managing your workload and are trying to keep warm. I also hope that your pyjamas are only being worn inside the house… Until next time, take care everyone!

Winter is coming!

Happy November everyone, I hope you’re all well. It’s finally November, and you know what that

means, that there are no longer Halloween things in the shops (well, there is the clearance bins) and Christmas stuff is EVERYWHERE! Soon enough shops will be playing Christmas songs on repeat, it will begin to get colder (and hopefully snow) and an abundance of soup will be consumed. I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but doesn't seem to be chicken noodle soup on sale. I cannot seem to find it anywhere in the supermarkets, it’s almost as if they have simply stopped selling it. Sad times!

Because November is mainly associated with the beginning of winter, it means that winter drinks are available. For those of you who have read my previous entries, you will be aware that I do not like the coffee in Costa, it just doesn't taste right! However, the other day I went in there with a couple of friends, and I noticed there was warm spiced apple on the menu. I know it isn't coffee, but surprisingly enough I do like beverages that aren't coffee. Shocking, I know! Warm spiced apple is a personal favourite of mine, and to see it on the menu made me very happy. It was rather tasty, and a perfect winter warmer; I would recommend it to anyone who likes the taste of spiced apples.

So what have I been doing so far then this November? At the weekend I went to the Natural History Museum to look at some natural history (why else would I be there I hear you ask). The dinosaur section of the museum was far too busy, so we didn't get a chance to have a look around there, but the other parts of the museum were interesting enough. I also have my first assignment deadline coming up this month. This deadline has come around far too quickly if you ask me, and perhaps I should start looking into starting said assignment… At least I seem to have everything under control for now; hopefully November will be a good month.

Until next time everyone, take care!