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.
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!
Thanks for the advice I also have learning support I have disabled student grant which entitles me to extra support.