Back in September, I submitted my final dissertation for my Master of Science in International Social Policy and Welfare. The masters was not what I expected at all, but at the same time it was pretty much what I anticipated.

During my undergraduate degree, I never really felt that my socio-economic status effected my time at university that much. Of course, it did to a certain level, but it never felt overt. Perhaps the more diverse student population made me feel that way, as going to university and studying at undergraduate level is an opportunity that a range of people get, from a range of backgrounds. Since finishing my masters and beginning my PhD level study, I’m starting to appreciate how entering postgraduate study as a working class person can be particularly challenging. Applying for my masters, and my PhD, was extremely challenging as I didn’t know anyone else who had done it previously, being the first in my family and peers to continue so far with formal education.

In light of this, I really wanted to write this entry sharing some of the things I have learnt and realised during my postgraduate study. Hopefully this could maybe reach someone who is the first of their family or circle of friends, for whatever reason, to take the step into postgraduate education.

For context, my masters was a year at Anglia Ruskin University and entirely course work based with a fifteen thousand word dissertation carried out in the third semester. Here are some of my most prominent realisations and things to consider about postgraduate study in the social sciences.

1- A masters is not like a repeat of the third year of your undergraduate degree:
So perhaps I was slightly naïve when I started my masters thinking this would be the case. I thought I’d be writing 2,500- 3,000 word essays every so often then calling it a day, maybe 3,500 at a push. This wasn’t the case, some of my essays were 3,500 words, but the majority were 4,000 or 6,000 words typically. It felt daunting to start of with, but as you explore issues more critically, widely and with greater complexity, the word count really does get used up easily.

2- You might get to practise your presentation skills:
As someone who doesn’t typically enjoy presenting, this was difficult for me. But often your masters peer group is smaller, and your topic is really tailored to what you want to study, so its not as bad as doing it at undergraduate level, at my university, three out of the four modules I took involved some presenting.

3- The dissertation sounds scary to start off with:
I started my masters just under four months after finally finishing my undergraduate dissertation, so I had the stress and exertion still fresh in my mind. I was nervous thinking about how I was going to conduct research and write up a 15,000 word masters dissertation, especially as the dissertation module only formally started in the final semester (12 weeks before submission). But the whole point of education is learning how to do things you currently cannot do, if I attempted to do my research and masters dissertation in the first month of the course, I would have probably catastrophically failed, but that’s sort of the whole point. Writing lengthier essays, exploring ideas further and practising applying theoretical frameworks to other issues prepared me for the dissertation.

4- Make a Gantt chart:
Linked to number 3, my Gantt chart saved my life during my dissertation. You can easily make one on Excel, I also broke down my work into week chunks, and at the top I wrote any social commitments so I had a clear idea on how much work I could realistically aim to get done each week. You can see lots of examples of this time management strategy online by searching for google images of Gantt charts, below is an example of the one I’ve made for my PhD.

5- Read, read, read:
Demonstrate that you have wider understanding of a concept, that goes beyond the lectures and seminars. And read for pleasure too, reading long documents is a skill and skills need practise and rehearsal! But if there is a key document/ paper that you simply just can’t get into the groove of, copy and paste the text into a word document and use the text to speech function and listen to it like a podcast.

6- It’s really independent:
At my university, we had six hours of face to face contact per week. So this means a lot of independent study. I found trying to maintain self discipline and routine more helpful than maintaining motivation; motivation is something that can be really unstable depending on your mood, and you can’t necessarily gain motivation when you don’t have it. But sticking to routines and developing an environment of self discipline is something you have a bit more control over, but remember to carve rest periods into that routine.

7- A word on using AI:
Universities often have their own policy on using AI. Personally, I would avoid it and I haven’t used it for any of my university work across both degrees and I’m not planning on doing so for my PhD. However, that being said, if you do want to use it, check the university’s AI policy, clarify with your lecturers, double check information with additional sources and do not use it just to do your work. I know some students use it to gather preliminary sources or to time manage. For one of my Masters module, three people used AI to make their presentations, and it was painfully obvious, very embarrassing for them and it is academic misconduct.

8- Consider PhD options a few months into your masters:
Being extremely early on in my PhD journey (I started the programme in January) I can only give one piece of advice regarding it so far. Start considering things to do with your PhD a few months into your masters. I didn’t realise how extensive the application processes are, most universities will ask you to create a research proposal- universities I looked at ranged between a 1,000- 2,500 word count- and some ask for an academic and professional CV. Choosing a university isn’t as simple as undergrad or even masters study, you need to find a university that has supervisors that supervise the topic you want to research, then they sometimes like you to identify an appropriate supervisor and send the research proposal draft to them before submitting an application. Some supervisors may then want to talk to you about your research multiple times before recommending you to apply/ giving an offer to you. But don’t panic if you leave it later, or can’t cope with thinking about those things during your masters. I only started seriously applying a month after my Masters finished, and I still had just enough time to figure it all out and get it done in time.