In general, the hours used by the other categories are acceptable to maintain some balance and relaxation for the mind and body to sustain motivation and some social life.
Overall reflection on personal strengths and weaknesses re time management based on evidence in my diary.
The first academic weeks (wk 2, 3 & 4) provided to be hard to maintain a constant routine to the changing environment of the university style of teaching (class contact) from a Sixth From teaching style. Managing my time was difficult at those weeks as it meant planning how to use the space provided in the diary, the style (font style) and presentation to allocate appropriate times for modules, meetings, and appointments, all of these must be effective and realistic to suite my life style. In addition, those weeks seems as an unpleasant challenge rather a positive experience to be a university student. I had little time to spend visiting and using the university facilities, which proved to aid my education in the following weeks (wk 5-9). At the same time I tried compressing my available time for coursework research, preparation (making notes) before a particular lecture or assignments (e.g. cell biology essay), and keeping track of future assignments, etc. As a resulted it affected my sleeping time and lead to a lack of concentration during lectures, which suggested my time management was not suitable for me. In week 5 after attempting the human physiology MCQ, I scored below my average standards, which confirmed my time management wasn’t helping me at all and that my study skills need to improve too, therefore a change was taken seriously by cutting down nearly half the hours spent with structured and un-structured leisure, i.e. cutting down on TV, web-surfing, socializing, and gym activities. Therefore adjusting the time evenly with all the modules and other activities seemed to be the best possible way to regain my concentration, improve my study skills and to keep ahead of my work. Gathering information on Cell Biology assay and preparing for it was spread over the weeks leading to the actual date in week 8. I managed to assemble information and time myself writing the essay in a period of 30mins. In week 9, I attempted a second MCQ test and achieved a better result than the first attempt which suggested my time management was effective but further improvements to my study skills as they seem to be my biggest weakness would be necessary before the third MCQ test to achieve a high score to make up for the lost ones. Overall, future approaches would be necessary to adjust with particular assignments, however after having a controllable time, university life is becoming interesting.
