Sammi:: Hello and welcome. We're at OU students HQ, Milton Keynes and today I'm with Cath.
Cath:: Hi, I'm Cath Brown. I'm president of the Students Association and, probably more importantly for this, I've been an OU student for 10 years now and I've done two and a half degrees - so I'm an OU addict. Sorry!
Sammi:: So I work in the student support team, but I'm also a student and I started studying in May and I actually have a TMA due you on the 6th of December. So what we'd like to do is talk about how to approach your first TMA.
Cath:: A tense time isn't it coming up to that.
Sammi:: Yeah definitely.
Cath:: So we've got a few tips I think, have we?
Sammi:: Yes, so you've come up with five, haven't you, and if you'd like to tell us it a bit more about those, that would be lovely.
Cath:: I certainly will so the first one was “Start in good time”, and it sounds obvious doesn't it, that you don't want to be rushing you to the last minute. And I know some people that they really do rush it at the last minute but that's a bit of a recipe…is that you?
Sammi:: Yeah, I’m getting better.
Cath:: It's a bit of a recipe for stress, isn't it really. I mean I understand not wanting to work until you get close to the deadline, but if you kind of kid yourself that the deadline was like three days earlier, and you’ve still got a bit of a margin haven't you.
The reason I would say that, it's not just because it makes you feel stressed and you can't think straight, but it's quite good to be able to come back to it again and just read though see if you’ve done anything daft.
Sammi:: That's a good tip. Okay, and what's the next one?
Cath:: The next one it has to be the really really important - is about talking to your tutor. There's so many students out there who act like they're still at school and their tutor is this really horrible scary teacher, who was coming to get them all the time. And it ain’t like that. Were all adults and they want you to succeed and, okay, they can't tell you what the answers are; but at least if you talk to them early and say “Look I'm not quite understanding how to do it”, then they'll be able to give you a bit of a hint.
If you're really running behind, life has been against you, they might be able to arrange an extension
but just get in touch with them early, get to know them, they really, really can be your best friend at the OU.
Sammi:: Funny you say that actually because I noticed, sometimes, that a tutor can then point you to like the bits that are crucial for your TMA and also point you to like the resources that the library have. So like how to reference or how to think critically and how to write critically. So there all useful pointers really that a tutor can help you with those. What’s next?
Cath:: Well I think one of the really important ones...in fact I've kind of got two together, is about don't expect to be perfect. We all want to do our best, all kind of thinking “Oh no, I'm really tried so hard for this. I want a top mark”, but realistically you're not gonna get hundred percent very often. And realistically we're all here to learn aren't we? We start out -we don't know - we're not an expert about it yet, so don't expect yourself to be perfect. Give it your best, but don't beat yourself up.
And the other one is don't compare yourself to others. It doesn't matter if someone else there has got ninety percent. So what? That's nice for them, be glad for them. It's like, suppose you've got unfit me here and I decide to start running - no this isn't gonna happen guys, but just imagine okay. Now I shouldn't get upset if I can't run as fast as someone who's been running and in training for ages should I.
And it's the same thing here you might have someone else in there, they've spent ages and ages and ages on it, they’ve got all the time in the world, they've been studying for years and years. So what if you don't get as much as them. It doesn't matter think about your aims.
Sammi:: Focus on our own on your own being.
Cath:: Absolutely and yes, that's the point you need to be realistic - give it your best, never
beat yourself up. Don't compare.
Sammi:: Brilliant I love that. I'm gonna use that.
Cath:: Excellent.
Cath:: Learn from it. The key thing about the TMA i- there actually there to learn from. I know it feels a bit sometimes like there’s someone's judging us, and okay you get very intense about it. But the most important thing about any TMA is the feedback we can
from your tutor.
Now, I've seen a few people around and they get the mark back and there a little bit disappointed and they can't face looking at it. The thing to do then, is to just give yourself a bit of a break, have coffee, have a nice bar of chocolate, or piece of cake, something stronger if it's that time of day and you feel so inclined.
Sammi:: We both like gin and tonic don't we?
Cath:: We do yes. So come back to in a day or so when you've had a chance to get your disappointment out of your system and then go for it and just read it carefully. Read every single little bit of feedback and don't take it personally, that mark. That tutor is marking your work, they're not marking you they're not saying you're not an adequate person right? So they're marking the work, look every single little bit of feedback, make a note of really important points so you can use them next time. And if you don't get it, you know what I'm gonna say, ask your tutor again.
Sammi:: There you go.
Cath:: So remember they're on your side they're there to help you and the feedback is there to help you learn and grow, imagine if you're learning to drive. And your driving instructor is telling you about how to improve your turning in the road - you're gonna try and do it aren't you. That's how you're gonna get to learn to pass your driving test. You're not going to say “No, no, no, I'm better”. So make sure you take it on board. Even if it's a little bit hard to at times.
And I think that really one of those things, remember that TMA's main function is to learn from, not to judge.
Sammi:: Fantastic. So actually that feeds nicely into your next tip which is about how to recover when things don't go so well.
Cath:: That's right, yes, I mean you always can recover it is not the end of the world. There are so many OU students out there - I'd suspect every single OU student out there has had a disappointing TMA, they may have had a disappointing module even. I know someone personally who's had a couple times where she's now doing her doctorate.
Sammi:: Fantastic.
Cath:: So there's absolutely no reason to be downhearted if things go a little bit wrong. That's just one of those setbacks that's part of life and you can do things about it.
Sammi:: Yeah, so actually there's also services available for when things don't go so well with students isn't there and could you tell us a bit more about those.
Cath:: Of course, well with the OU, obviously we've got student support teams. So if you think that you're concerned that things are going quite badly wrong and you want to talk to them - as well as your tutor, they're there,
We've also obviously got the services with have in the association. So we've got our peer support service and that's all anonymised - there’s no reason to feel embarrassed or anything like that. But if
you like to chat things through with someone who understands exactly how it is to be an OU student that's a really really useful service and we've we re-launched that this year.
Sammi:: We have, yes, and also also really important to say that service is run - well it's delivered by OU students and it's completely confidential. So you won't know who you're talking to and what you say does remain - it is kept private and then we also have Nightline.
Cath:: We do, we're affiliated to Nightline and that one runs at night, like it says. What is it?
Sammi:: It's 6pm to 6am. through term time.
Cath:: Yeah, so you can just phone that up, basically as an OU student you're in a position to phone that up. If you want to have a chat to someone, and I think the night works really well because that's often when we do get a little bit stressy. You're sitting there feeling absolutely desperate. You can't get your head around this.
Sammi:: I guess it's the time if you're feeling stressed and you can't sleep then actually you know that's a great number to call isn't it because then you can relay some of your like worries and your anxieties. And actually, there's someone there to listen to you and help talk through your concerns.
Cath:: And that's all run by students isn't it. Not all OU students. So people who get what it's like to be worrying.
Sammi:: Basically students are amazing, volunteers are amazing, we just need to keep using those services don't we.
Cath:: We do and we've got a nice new one from the OU called Big White Wall haven't we? Which is about mental health issues. And if you've got an OU email you can just sign up to that and it's all online so that's another way to get a bit of extra support and we have a lot of OU students signing up to that already. And we’re getting really good feedback about how useful it is. So if you're feeling you've got an issue with your mental wellness that might be a really good place to go.
Sammi:: Sure. And you can actually access that information through our OUstudents.com website if you go to the student support section and on the drop-down there's a tab called Big White Wall and it's got all the information there about how you can access our service.
So actually we'd like to offer you the chance to ask some questions as well if you do have any please leave them below in the comment section and we'll try and get back to you as quickly as possible. And if we don't know the answer we will try and find the answer and get back to you.
Cath:: We certainly will. Thanks for watching
Sammi:: Brilliant thank you.
Cath:: Bye. Best of luck with that TMA, I'm sure you'll do brilliantly!
Sammi:: Good luck!
