Whether we are returning to education after a long break, changing to a course we have an interest in but no experience of, or are coming straight from school to college, studying literature is by no means straight-forward. Whether you are a student who picked English as a last-minute choice from the pool of arts subjects or selected it out of genuine love of the subject, regardless it has a long-standing reputation as “the easy choice”. This is understandable when we consider the ways in which the leaving certificate is set out. While our teachers may have been enthusiastic and innovative, this system itself outlines exactly what answers they are looking for and the students are guided towards these literary interpretations. Ultimately, in our school days, we likely had a lot of help.  

My name is Loretta, and I work here in the Skills Centre as a Research Support Officer. Prior to that, I did my BA in New York, my MA in Limerick and my PhD in Film and Screen Media here at UCC, so I’ve been in the university environment for a while now! Thinking back on my experiences as we are about to start a new academic year, I want to share some of my thoughts on the value of your time at university, and making the most of it, as part of the Skills Centre’s “If I knew then what I know now”  series. I’ll break this into a few key pieces of advice below. 

Hi, my name is Conor, and I am a second year PhD student in UCC’s economics department. If I knew then, what I know now is a platform which allows us postgraduate students to pass down the knowledge we have acquired during our time in UCC, with hopes of making your transition into third level education as smooth as possible. While incoming first years will undoubtedly benefit most from this type of blog, I guarantee even final year students will learn something from at least one of these (past or future) blog posts. 

Hi, my name is Conor, and I am a second year PhD student in UCC’s economics department. If I knew then, what I know now is a platform which allows us postgraduate students to pass down the knowledge we have acquired during our time in UCC, with hopes of making your transition into third level education as smooth as possible, and even teach existing students a thing or two.  

Hi, my name is Cláudia, I’m a first-year PhD student at Science Engineering Programme at UCC and Tyndall National Institute. Let me start by congratulating this amazing blog. I wish I had similar resources when I was coming into college, or even during my master. Having our peers sharing first-hand stories and pass on their experiences is a learning opportunity that might be useful one day. 

Hi, my name is Conor, and I am a second year PhD student in UCC’s economics department. If I knew then, what I know now is a platform which allows us postgraduate students to pass down the knowledge we have acquired during our time in UCC, with hopes of making your transition into third level education as smooth as possible. While incoming first years will undoubtedly benefit most from this type of blog, I guarantee even final year students will learn something from at least one of these (past or future) blog posts. 

Hi, my name is Conor, and I am a second year PhD student in UCC’s economics department. If I knew then, what I know now is a platform which allows us postgraduate students to pass down the knowledge we have acquired during our time in UCC, with hopes of making your transition into, and experience of, third level education as smooth and enjoyable as possible.  

This is Part 1 of a 2-part post giving my insights on what has worked for me when planning and starting assignments. This piece specifically focuses on the planning stages prior to reading or writing. 

Hi, my name is Conor, and I am a second year PhD student in UCC’s economics department. This is Part 2 of a 2-part post telling you what has worked for me when planning and starting assignments. This piece specifically focuses on starting assignments by sourcing and reading material, eventually working to translate your notes into coherent paragraphs. 

As an undergraduate, I paid little attention to the acknowledgment pages of the books I read for my degree. Back then, I did not know just how significant that easily turned acknowledgment page could or would be in any academic’s life. What I know now is to look for and to read the heartfelt thank you given by every author to their editors. If you have never experienced what it is to have someone edit your work, this Blog post is certainly for you.  

Arriving in university, it can almost feel like you’re thrown in the deep end with little guidance. Sure, orientation and introductory classes offer incredible support to new students, but sometimes it can still feel as if you are expected to know everything after the first week. Well, I’m here to tell you that is absolutely not true! While the college experience appears a world away from secondary school, gone is your rigidly structured timetable and study reminders, it is vital to remember there is always help available to those who ask.  

Hi, my name is Conor, and I am a second year PhD student in UCC’s economics department. If I knew then, what I know now is a platform which allows us postgraduate students to pass down the knowledge we have acquired during our time in UCC, with hopes of making your transition into third level education as smooth as possible. While incoming first years will undoubtedly benefit most from this type of blog, I guarantee even final year students will learn something from at least one of these (past or future) blog posts. 

The aim of this post is to combine topics that I think deserve mentioning, especially to incoming students, but don’t quite encompass a blog on their own. 

Hi there, My name is Maura, and I am a second-year PhD student in Medicine. Leanne has invited me to write today’s blog to tell you about two things I wished I had known earlier.

 First of all, spurred by another blog post, I wished I had new earlier about the scheduled send option in gmail/umail. With this function, you can write your emails and then have them send at a pre-set time allowing you to work on your emails at your convenience while still making sure you end up in the right email inbox at the right time. Want to increase your chance, that your lecturers is reading your email first, make sure the email hit his/her inbox around 9am, even though you might have already typed the email at 11pm the night before.

Coming to college from secondary school, it’s super easy to get swept away by college life and lecture schedules that are all over the place. Amongst all the distractions, it can be very hard to figure out when you work best, and what assignments to do when. Make sure you figure out what time of day you can concentrate best (for some that’s in the mornings, for some that’s at night, there’s no right or wrong here!). Use that as a guide to structure your days and carve out specific time slots that are allocated to college work. Not every day is the same in terms of productivity. But you will find that if you stick to your best working times, you get more done in less time and it will become a habit to get college work done!

As an undergraduate, I paid little attention to the acknowledgment pages of the books I read for my degree. Back then, I did not know just how significant that easily turned acknowledgment page could or would be in any academic’s life. What I know now is to look for and to read the heartfelt thank you given by every author to their editors. If you have never experienced what it is to have someone edit your work, this Blog post is certainly for you.

In my first year of university, I did not attend many lectures. In my naive view, the hard work had been completed. I had coasted through the leaving certificate with relatively little stress and by some miracle had received just enough points to get into the only course I had put down on my CAO. As a result, I believed the hard work was over.

I learned early on in college that you should never be afraid to ask people about something you’re not quite sure about, or that you need a little more information on. If you’re struggling with a module, a specific topic you just cannot wrap your head around, or you want to know about potential laboratory studentships (I’d recommend looking into one of these as in CK402 there is no set placement), or you just want to ask about potential post-graduate routes – never be afraid to find someone to ask. 

This blog is following on from last week’s topic How to critically appraise a paper. The main difference between critically appraising a paper and conducting a methodological quality assessment is that a critical appraisal usually involves the entire paper while a methodological quality assessment specifically focuses on the methods and results section. 

Welcome back to my blog post series, today’s topic is How to read a critically appraise a scientific paper (medical journal).

 Firstly, it is important to understand why we critically analyse papers. One of the main reasons is to determine if this paper is trustworthy. Are findings of this paper generalizable and applicable to a clinical or hospital setting?

As students, reading journal articles can be long and very time consuming. When the workload increases you may not have time to read entire articles. Here is where I can give you some tips and tricks about how to extract the relevant and important information from journal articles which will save you heaps of time during the busy study period.

Whether we are returning to education after a long break, changing to a course we have an interest in but no experience of, or are coming straight from school to college, studying literature is by no means straight-forward. Whether you are a student who picked English as a last-minute choice from the pool of arts subjects or selected it out of genuine love of the subject, regardless it has a long-standing reputation as “the easy choice”. This is understandable when we consider the ways in which the leaving certificate is set out. While our teachers may have been enthusiastic and innovative, this system itself outlines exactly what answers they are looking for and the students are guided towards these literary interpretations. Ultimately, in our school days, we likely had a lot of help.

My name is Triona. I am delighted to be taking part in the Skills Centre “If I knew then what I know now” initiative. This blog post is designed for all students; those transitioning into college from Secondary School, from their undergrad to a masters, those taking their first step into education as a mature student and all those returning to education after some time away!

My name is Leanne Ahern and I am delighted to be part of this new initiative by the Skills Centre entitled “If I knew then what I know now”. The aim of this initiative is to help new and returning students here at UCC to become familiar with the academic standards and protocols associated with third-level education. These blogs are aimed for all students including those transitioning from secondary school to first year of college, mature students returning to college, current students and masters students transitioning from an undergraduate degree. This blog series will cover a range of different topics which will be beneficial for students including how to read journal articles and develop new skills around academic writing.

Welcome back to the 'If I knew then what I know now' blog series, today’s topic is How to search for relevant journal articles. When searching for a journal article I would recommend using the UCC Library OneSearch. The reason for this is because some databases have a paywall and UCC might have access. If you do have any difficulty finding any article you can always ask the library staff for help (they are great).