5th Week Free: campaign for a reading week at OxfordTestimonial: History student Holly RowdenI wasn&

5th Week Free: campaign for a reading week at OxfordTestimonial: History student Holly RowdenI wasn’t familiar with the concept of ‘Fifth Week Blues’ until Freshers week. But, after hearing the second and third years talking about the sense of hopelessness that sets in when you realise there are still 3 weeks to go and so much still to learn, a sense of nervous anticipation grew as I waited for the stress to properly wash over me. Fifth week came and went, perhaps too fast for me to even notice. I was too busy negotiating two essays a week, and the tiring excitement of settling into a new and intense environment so entirely removed from anything I’d experienced before. Perhaps I had been too deeply in ‘autopilot’ to notice. I think it was 8th week when I finally realised that ‘Fifth Week Blues’ weren’t exclusive to fifth week. And I started to wonder if maybe people were right about the workload at Oxford. Having grown accustomed to the periodical crisis of self doubt (‘why am I here? Surely there was some administrative mistake and they meant to offer someone else a place?’), I worried that I had bitten off more than I could chew by coming here. Fifth week hadn’t taken me by surprise because the pressure had been high from day one; the cumulative effect was impossible to ignore. I’d just been somehow convinced into thinking this was normal, just how things are at Oxford, that ‘Fifth Week Blues’ were a tradition (even if a regrettable one). Whether it’s 5th week or 3rd week or 7th week or 6th week, sustaining yourself for 8 weeks solidly is an enormous challenge, and rising to it often feels like an impossibility. We get generous holidays compared to many other universities, but they almost always begin with a haze of headachy exhaustion.  The structure of terms and the ‘let’s cram as much as we possibly can into a ridiculously small space of time’ mentality are hugely disadvantageous and counterproductive, but above all it’s damaging to mental health, isolating, and drains the enjoyment out of what may otherwise be enjoyable tasks. There’s nothing wrong with striving for high academic achievement. But it shouldn’t come at such a damaging cost. Having ‘Fifth week free’ would allow students to consolidate, recalibrate, reorganise and rest. -- source link
Tumblr Blog : womcam.tumblr.com

More pics about