Studying and surviving at LSE

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• Studying and surviving at LSE
• Wednesday 14 October 2009
• Starting at 3.50 pm
• Adam Sandelson
• LSE Student Counselling Service

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Aims

• Common challenges in starting at LSE
• Practical tips for dealing with transition
• Stress management skills
• Sources of advice and help

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Part 1

• Common challenges in starting at LSE
• Academic
• Social
• Settling in tips

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Settling in The Academic side

• New level of study
• Previous standards
• Reading strategies
• Use SQ3R
• Scan, Question, Read, Review, Recall
• Presentations, essays and exams
• Academic adviser relationship

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Academic challenges

• Overwhelmed with material
• New style of learning
• Independent critical voice
• Anxiety can lead to procrastination
• We may disguise avoidance by being busy
• We may find things to do that are interesting,
  but don't contribute towards the main goal

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Settling in - the Social Side

• Talking to strangers
• Meeting new people
• New contacts through shared activities
• Meeting people from different backgrounds
• Keeping contact with people from home
• Balance of work and leisure

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The challenge of transition

• Loss of familiar
• home, friends, family, routine
• Coping with loss, after initial excitement
  subsides
• Depression and anxiety
• Cultural isolation
• Relationships and Identity
• Financial difficulties

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Feeling Homesick

• There is a natural grieving reaction
• associated with change
• extremely common
• often in first weeks
• can occur when leaving home, but also later (eg
  after Xmas break)

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Homesickness is associated with

• distance from home
• high initial expectations
• sense of anticlimax
• time to adapt to changed culture, language and
  lifestyle
• work overload and low control over it
• most people come through homesickness and go on
  to do well and enjoy their time

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Initial impressions

• Why did you choose to study at LSE
• What are your initial impressions
• Academic
• Social
• Cultural

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Settling in Tips

• Talk to someone - others feel the same
• Speak to people at home but also get involved
  here
• You are allowed to enjoy yourself
• It isn't being disloyal to those you miss!
• Be realistic about what to expect
• from student life and from yourself
• Try to balance work and leisure
• Give yourself time to adjust
• You don't have to get everything
• right straight away
• Food and sleep

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Part 2

• The context for studying
• What are you really
• doing here?

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Ambivalence?

• Leaving home and family
• Independence
• Future career
• Relationships
• Being a student
• Studying at LSE
• Your course
• Study

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Underlying dynamics

• Trying to please others
• Being a perfectionist
• Feeling under pressure to do everything right
• Setting yourself impossible targets
• Repeating anxiety, trauma, fear of failure
• The family/ historic context for your success

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Dynamics of study, work, life ...
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Under Pressure?

• What pressures are you under as a student coming
  to LSE
• From others
• From yourself
• Are these pressures realistic or excessive?

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Part 3

• Practical ways of dealing
• with study challenges

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Practical approaches

• Revise study skills
• see LSE Learning World
• Time management skills
• Set realistic and achievable goals
• Short term targets, longer term strategies
• Recognise short term achievements
• Talk to others, ask for help and support

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Concentrate on the task
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Focussing on the task

• Concentrate on the task, not the outcome
• Break down huge activities into small manageable
  tasks
• Remember past successes
• You are likely to pass
• Time for breaks
• space to breathe and think
• mind maps, scribble ideas
• go for a walk, talk out loud

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Part 4

• Stress Management Skills

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Stress Management Skills

• Physical, behavioural, cognitive
• Regularly switch off
• Schedule some kind of physical activity
• Good self care
• Sleep, diet, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine
• Time out without guilt
• Acknowledge anxiety, rather than denying it.
• Ask are my negative thoughts realistic?

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Challenging negative thoughts

• Imagine them under test in a Court of Law
• Or apply Socratic reasoning
• Identify the negative thought
• (I cant do this course, Im going to fail)
• Ascertain the evidence For and Against
• Am I making a thinking error
• Propose a more reasonable alternative thought

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Thinking errors

• All or nothing thinking
• Discounting the positive
• only seeing the negative side
• Over-generalizing
• If it happened before it will happen again
• Believing a catastrophe will happen
• Emotional Reasoning
• If I feel it then it must be true

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Part 5

• Advice and help

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Sources of advice and help

• Academic Adviser Disability Office
• Departmental Staff Student Services Centre
• TLC study skills advisors Learning World
• Student Union and Advice Centre Medical Centre
  
• Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisor Deans

• Don't wait until problems have grown impossibly
  large
• Its OK to ask for help earlier

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LSE Student Counselling Service G507

• Free and confidential
• Mainly short term counselling
• Book appointments in advance
• Urgent appointments (phone early in the day)
• See Website for
• Confidentiality Policy
• Stress management handouts
• Self help resources on a wide range of student
  issues (study related and personal
  difficulties)
• Relaxation MP3s

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Future Presentations

• Writing Psychology
• Wednesday 21 October, 330 430 NABLG01
• Friday 6 November, 300 - 400 NAB204 (repeat
  session)
• International Students Workshop
• Wednesday 4 November, 200 300 NABLG08
• (not 1.30 in OT as previously advertised)
• Acclimatising To London Life - Mid Term Review
• Wednesday 11 November, 1200 - 100 H216
• Psychological Challenges Faced By MSc Students
• Friday 13 November, 300 - 400 Graham Wallace
  Room

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Forthcoming Groups

• Stress Management Group (3 weeks), Thursday 2
  4, 19 November
• Self Esteem Group (3 weeks) Friday 11 - 1, 20
  November
• MSc group
• PhD group
• Places on all groups need to be booked in
  advance.
• Please see the website, Call Ext 3627, visit
  G507 or email student.counselling_at_lse.ac.uk,

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Final thoughts

• Transition can be stressful, but also allows us
  to grow as a person
• Imagine looking back in 5 years
• Talk