Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi I am in my final year of university I am studying health and care of children and young people undergrad and I am about to start working on my dissertation. My topic is children's mental health during the pandemic and lockdown. I have just had a meeting online with my supervisor Ben and he is impressed with the research I have done so far and is happy for me to start the first chapter. Has anyone else been in my shoes if so any advice would greatly be appreciated. I will say as an adult with autism my university is super supportive and the help they are providing me is amazing even the lecturers understand my needs and are happy to spend a bit of time with me if needed if I have been struggling with a lecture. Basically, if anyone has ever been to university and has made it to their final year any advice would be amazing thank you.
Rach91 said:Hi I am in my final year of university
That's fantastic.
Rach91 said:I am studying health and care of children and young people undergrad and I am about to start working on my dissertation. My topic is children's mental health during the pandemic and lockdown.
This is a really fascinating topic that you've selected.
Rach91 said:I have just had a meeting online with my supervisor Ben and he is impressed with the research I have done so far and is happy for me to start the first chapter.
This is great news, and a great start.
Rach91 said: I will say as an adult with autism my university is super supportive and the help they are providing me is amazing even the lecturers understand my needs and are happy to spend a bit of time with me if needed if I have been struggling with a lecture.
This is really good to hear. Be upfront about what you need - and if you do need it, ask! I regret finding out about my autism late, and receiving very little support (at times hostile) from my university. It is really good, as @Amerantin has said, that there has been progress.
Rach91 said:Has anyone else been in my shoes if so any advice would greatly be appreciated
Is there a particular issue that you would like advice/comment on?
I got hyper focused on one area in my disertation that my advisor wasn't keen on. (Lax pairs and the inverse scatering problem) Consequently I kept chasing that area and he kept trying to redirect me in to other topics and I kind of started ignoring him. It was poor behavior from both of us in hind sight and it cost me marks. Inflexability on my part and his plus bad comunication. lol in retrospect he was probably autistic too.
Thanks for the advice I also have learning support I have disabled student grant which entitles me to extra support.
Having a supportive supervisor is really helpful and will make a lot of difference. Depending on the type of research you are doing it may not make sense to start writing from the beginning. I did a scientific style dissertation sometimes they are better written up out of order but you could probably still make a start on the introduction. Having friends and family as proofreaders also helped me, I read mine through so many times and I’d still missed a typo on the first page! I also bought a notepad especially for my dissertation so everything was in one place together although a lot of what I wrote down is probably done more online these days. I had a lot of paper journal articles to read through!
Not sure I can offer you advice (I did computer science) but I would like to say that it’s really wonderful that the university is supportive.
Back in my day there was no support and it’s an absolute miracle I made it through university, which was very traumatic for me. I’m really glad there’s been progress.