Taught Masters - Should I pack it in?

Swoquix

I'm not posting under my usual username because I don't want to be identified.
I took on a taught masters in a major Irish university in an area that I am really interested in and love. However, I'm already having major issues and I don't know if I should just pack it in.

In one of the modules we were assigned a group project and basically nobody seems to be doing anything. I tried to pull them together but didn't really get anywhere. They wouldn't even have meetings, and just want to do everything by email.

The topic wasn't covered in any lecturers and we were basically expected to produce a long piece of work on it and I don't really understand the theory despite having read everything I can find on it. I'm only 2 weeks into the course i.e. maybe 2.5 hours of lectures in this module.

We'd a meeting with the lecturer and I couldn't really follow anything they were on about (I mean not even the words coming out of their mouth made sense) - they just talked at us for about an hour at huge speed in total jargon that I would nearly need a dictionary to translate into normal English. I came out more confused than when I went in. They are also incredibly cutting about the fact that I didn't understand the topic and I left the meeting totally doubting my ability to even complete the course. They literally went through my work in front of a group and pretty much mocked me about it.

They basically just kept quoting random articles at me and expecting me to have 100% familiarity with them after 2 weeks in the course which I thought was pretty unreasonable.

I'm now up at 2 in the morning trying to figure out what the hell this is all about and I need to get it done by tomorrow. I still don't quite understand what I'm up to and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get another 'telling off' tomorrow when I hand in a draft.

I'm not out of my depth in any other modules and quite enjoy them. I work in the area which is what's making it even more humiliating as I should be fairly expert in it.

Is this normal? Just teething problems or am I totally out of my league here?

I'm sort of thinking of just going to the fees office and asking if I can get a refund and withdrawing from the programme. Although, the other aspects of it seem fine.

I went through a bit of a major personal trauma a few months ago and I'd decided to go back to do a masters to kind of give myself a new start in life. I'm just not sure I could deal with this amount of stress and being told off like a school kid to be perfectly honest.

I might have been better off to just pack my stuff and move abroad rather than trying to further upskill.

Any suggestions?
Should I stay or should I go?

I know a masters is supposed to be challenging, but if this is what it's going to be like I don't think I'm cut out for it.

LegacyUser

You're only having trouble with one module? Of course you shouldn't pack it in. It's slightly concerning that one bad module would drive you to this. Perhaps you feel publicly humiliated by this lecturer which is what is causing such an extreme reaction.

With regards to this lecturer I think you need to stand up for yourself. If you feel he is bombarding you by name dropping articles you need to calmly tell him that two weeks into a course you do not have the familiarity with the literature that he does, and hold your ground.

Unfortunately, academia is not immune from awful people. If you worked in an office you'd have a few, and it's the same in universities. You just have to deal with them.

Faith

Oh, I feel your pain. A masters was the hardest thing I've ever done. I hated every. single. minute of my masters. I hated every module, I hated the town, I hated my thesis supervisor and I did not have many fond feelings towards a lot of the lecturers.

A masters is hard. It's not supposed to be easy. It's the next step from an undergraduate degree. The problem is, you're treated like a PhD student who has 3 years to do their work, but you've only got 12 months. No lecturer cares that you have several other modules and a pile of work to do for them. The handholding of an undergraduate degree is gone, and that's really hard to get used to.

I stuck mine out but I'm torn as to what to advise you.

I know how you're feeling, because I was there. If you enjoy all of your other modules, then I think you're in a better position than I was. For that reason, I think you should stick it out. The motivation I used to keep going was that no employer cares what grade you got for your Masters, they only care that you successfully completed it. If I were you, I'd focus my attention on doing the best I could on the rest of the modules, and just aim to get through the horrible one.

Honestly, everyone on my course struggled. I've just seen a Facebook status from someone who's just started one - two days in, and she is feeling completely overwhelmed. I think that's normal. I think that's just par for the course.

Weigh up your options carefully. I went through with mine because pride prevented me from dropping out. I still had to emigrate, but here in Canada, I can earn twice what I could in Ireland as they value a Masters much more highly.

I doubt I've helped you with your decision at all, but I just wanted to let you know that how you're feeling is normal. It's hard and you'll struggle - but only you can decide if it's worth it.

Rubberchikken

I can't offer advice from a college-goer perspective as I've never been, but I can say is if you're only findingeone module difficult, then try your best to stick it out.

Maybe this lecturer is always this way. Maybe he thinks he gets the best out of people by behaving in this manner.
You should rise above it and show him you won't be beaten by his pettiness.

Good luck

Meathlass

Hey OP, I'm working full-time and doing a Masters 2 evening a week so I can relate a little to what you're saying. It's a horrible situation when you feel out of your depth like that.

Group projects are a nightmare put on earth to test us. After some disasters last year I treat them all like individual projects and do them myself. Then at least if the others actually do any work it's a happy bonus. Yes, it's not fair that they get marks for my work but I'm not jepordising my results.

Your lecture is being very unprofessional, unfortunately some people are like that. Can you speak to others in your group or class and ask them to explain it to you or clarify the bits you're not getting? 2 weeks into a course you shouldn't be expected to be totally up to speed on the subject. Can you get in contact with someone who did it last year, perferably with the same lecturer, to get an idea of what the project is about.

I wouldn't advise withdrawing if you enjoy the other subjects. If it doesn't improve you could perhaps defer that module until next year when you might be better able to tackle it and hopefully there'd be a different lecturer.

When I die I want the members of my group projects to be my pall bearers ... just so they can let me down one last time.

Swoquix

The good news is the project's now complete and we presented it earlier in the week.

I put a whole lot of work into the aspects of it that I was doing and tried to pull the presentation together but nobody would even meet up to actually do a run through before we headed in!!?!

Presenting to an audience is water off a duck's back to me, but it wasn't for the others and they ended up not coming across very well at all. The lecturer kept jumping in and correcting points during the presentation.

My part went very well and came across quite professionally I think.

I lodged a formal complaint with the department over the whole situation and the result is that they've switched the weighting around so the group presentation part of the project is now only worth <20% of the overall mark and a longer individual write-up will be counting for almost 80%.

Tramps Like Us

Haha, well done OP! Fair play.

Swoquix

Sadly, I think I might have been right a few weeks ago.
Coming up to a load of exams now and absolutely screwed.

I understand the topics, enjoy participating in class, but I don't have the time / ability to do the exams properly tbh.

Whole thing has been a complete waste of time and money

CaraMay

Sounds like you are just panicking. You have time to study

dellas1979

Swoquix wrote: »

Sadly, I think I might have been right a few weeks ago.
Coming up to a load of exams now and absolutely screwed.

I understand the topics, enjoy participating in class, but I don't have the time / ability to do the exams properly tbh.

Whole thing has been a complete waste of time and money

I dont understand the part in bold - surely you knew what you were getting yourself into when signing up?

I can only talk about my experience OP. I did a Masters over 2 years. And worked full time too. And it was hard.

A lot of organising and keeping to a schedule. I only learned the importance of this about 5/6 months in when I felt overwhelmed by the workload.

I had to sacrifice a lot of things during this time. Including a lot of socialising and hobbies, and general interests. I went to work to pay the bills. And in the evening, nights, and weekends, worked on the Masters (to boot trying to schedule in days and hours when I had to go into class). Downtime for me was doing the shopping, cleaning the house/doing the washing. For me, I believed that it would lead to better work opportunities (to work in my preferred area).

Are your beliefs enough to get you through this?

Swoquix

Not really - huge load of weird stuff going on in personal life.
Took on too much.
Can't keep up with it.

I'm getting less than 4 hours sleep a night due to work + college and still falling way behind and I've no social life at all. Literally. I don't even go out shopping anymore.

There was no option of doing it over 2 years, so I'm doing it over one. Which was basically stupid.

It's also in an area I work in so, it's going to be hugely humiliating if I fail it. So, I need to cancel.

It's roughly 24-28h per week of classes, I'm working outside of that and I can't get enough study done. On top of that I've just had a load of personal life turmoil that I'm not going into but it was enough to give me more than enough stress for a life time.

Yeah, I knew what I was getting into. I'm just a complete idiot and failure.

I got really sick a few weeks ago and I don't think they believe me. Brought in med certs and stuff but they're all very vague and fluffy and several things have just piled up on on me now and I can't really catch up and I haven't had time to properly study for the exams. So, basically - totally screwed.

I shouldn't have taken it on. I'm not in a good place right now in terms of where my life is due to recent personal turmoil mentioned above. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but clearly it wasn't.

I don't even have anywhere to live anymore. Ended up dumped, and living on a sofa. It's not fun. Life at the moment is basically : work, college, library - sleep on sofa.

I've spent the last few months trying to keep up a front and try to relaunch everything after a messy breakup. So, probably a totally stupid thing to have taken on a heavy postgrad course, although I didn't expect the rug to have been pulled out from under me financially in the meantime.

I don't really tell anyone about the break up, I keep myself looking professional and I just try to get on with stuff and get myself into a position where I can maybe quickly emigrate. I thought the postgrad would just give me a chance to consider my position while learning extra skills and pushing up my income earning ability, but maybe I just bit into way too much, I don't know.

I'll figure something out. I just don't think it's necessarily worth giving myself a heart attack over which is where I feel I'm headed. I have been to GP with chest pains and stuff, got put on BP medication as it's 190/110 some of the time. Also, seem to have endless stomach problems - just really bad pains in my upper stomach at times, I can be doubled-over with them. Those haven't been explained at all by the GP and I'm waiting to see someone about them, but I think it's probably stress-related.

I think I just need to move to a new place and start over tbh.

eeeee

OP, I think you need to find even 10 mins of the day when you don't work, do college, and just breathe. It could be in the loo on your lunch hour, just before you get to sleep, but just breathe and breathe into every bit of your body from your toes to the top of your head. It sounds really airy fairy but it really, really does work.

Your life sounds really tumultuous and chaotic at the moment, there;s so so much going on, so much change, pressure and hurt. You need space to steady yourself, to take a minute just to ground yourself, unwind the clock a bit. It reads like you're running a marathon and juggling and a million other rings and you're mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. take 10 mins a day to rest against a lamp post!

I can relate to the masters pressure, I am in one myself with a stupid amount of work to do and not enough time to do it in. That it's taught it a good thing, you at least have support and some structure. If it's only one module you are really struggling with give your self 2 hours per week every week where you just do that-you will say you need more but just every week at the same time sit down to it and do that. I made a super super structured timetable for myself, dividing my time into college, work, life chances and live by that.

I suppose I'm saying beak it down. With everything going on it probably seems like everything is yet another bio mountain of indecipherable impenetrable arch but you can do it, but only if you look after yourself. Hence the breathing. The more you can do that the better. It'll help stablise you and help with the emotional and mental upheaval you're going through. You can do it OP, you definitely can but you need to Look After your self as much as you can. Starting with 10 mins of me time and building it up a day would help an awful lot. You need a bank of 'you' to pull from to get through what you're going through. At the minute you're just pulling out of a dry well. You need to rebuild. Make a super ordered timetable. Give yourself 10 mins to just breathe and replenish yourself a day. If you have anyone to talk to get onto them. Pick up the phone. People seem busy but I guarantee your friends will be angrier if you don't let them know what's going on than if you don't and end up dropping out, becoming unwell etc. You can do it OP, you definitely can. Best of luck with it.

Swoquix

Yeah, good suggestions.
I'll give it a go, but can't really see the course being finished anymore.

I just hope it's possibly salvageable as I'm late with a few things at this stage and will probably get no grade for them and I'd say there's a fairly strong possibility that I'll fail at least one of the more technical subjects over xmas exams next week.

As for friends, I don't really have any anymore. My closest friends all emigrated and now live in Australia, NZ, Canada and other places and I'm not really in touch with them other than very vaguely on Facebook.
Because of the relationship issues over the last while too, I didn't really make any new friends to replace them. So, basically don't have a hell of a lot of support anymore and the whole 'infrastructure' that I did have is pretty much gone.

I've some family members to talk to etc, but I literally wouldn't have a single person I could just ring for a chat anymore. I haven't been for a pint with someone for maybe 4 or 5 years. Largely because if I went out for a pint with the lads, I got hell when I got home again so I just stopped talking to them. I couldn't really socialise with my ex in tow as it caused serious issues and I couldn't socialise on my own as it caused even more serious issues. So, I just pretty much dropped everyone.

Most of my mates (well, people I now vaguely know who live in Australia etc) probably don't even know I'm doing a masters, never mind considering dropping out of it.

eeeee

Well for a start being out of that relationship sounds a lot healthier than being in it! Horrible and all though it may feel now. I would also say your friends are still there. I's say they had a good idea of what was going on in your relationship and would be more than willing to catch up with you again. You'd be surprised what other people see, even if you think no one notices. They do. Maybe Skype one of your emigrated friends?

Re the course, the college does have a responsibility to look after you, they have a duty of care for you once they enroll you as a student it's in their interest to see you finish. Do you have a course coordinator? Hook up with them and let them know what has being going on in your life, and ask for some leeway on your deadlines. The exams you can only do what you can do but I think there is still hope if you can get a bit of headspace and break it off in manageable chunks, instead of a horrible, massing lump of stuff you can't penetrate or begin to understand. If it's really too much pressure your mental health is the most important thing of all, and everything else is second to that.

Maybe go out for coffee by yourself just to get out and about on your own one day a week? You could bring some course work and just sit and read or watch the world go by for 15 mins or half an hour. Give your self that head space. It's going to take a long, long time to undo 5 years of having to justify your self constantly and never going out. Baby steps!

You'll have your masters for life, it's another 6 moths that's all. Buy only, only if you can mentally take it. It's not worth your health, but it is worth looking after yourself as much as possible to see if you can do it. Masters are hell, pure hell but do able. You haven't failed yet, and as to the lecturer's attitude, fcuk them they have no idea what''s going on in your life and that is just purile and immature behaviour. He or she is a dick. You'll never go through this again OP if that's any help, once it's over it's over.

Take the few mins a day for yourself though. That's paramount and helped me a lot. I was trying to do everything, constantly, and only ended up beating myself up about how badly I was half doing everything. I never stopped. It doesn't help at all. I find taking a couple of mins here and there throughout the day helps me stand back and see the bigger picture and not panic so much. Because I feel it as a panic. It's horrible. Don't forget to eat and drink. If you're grabbing a quick bite to eat make it a good healthy big one! You need nourishment, mental and physical.

verywell

I echo everything Faith said above. Doing a master for me was (and still is) the hardest thing I have done in my 30+ years. I stuck at it to the bitter end. Stopping was just not an option for me.

BUT it has opened more doors for me since and to this day (4 yrs in) I am so glad I stuck it out.

dellas1979

On top of the all college stuff I mentioned above, I too went through a difficult break up during that period (the final year). So, I can mirror some of the issues you face.

But its time to get realistic, and make that decision.

Your health, both physically and mentally, should 1000% be your priority.

- Do the Masters full-time. Study. Work. And try to find a balance. And say nothing. Or,
- Talk to the Admissions office/course director and find out what your options are. If you still cant find a solution, then maybe you do need to pick it up again, when you feel you are ready.

Can I just say, in your OP you had a problem. And you spoke up and it got sorted out. Your only mistake right now is not opening your mouth again to let people know what is going on.

And you havent failed anything. You (tried) something and, right now, its not working.

emuhead

You might have other options. The student advisor (or basically person in college responsible for supporting student retention) will be able to advise you. You may be able to:

1) Defer your course until next year and retain credits for the module/s you've done

2) Transfer to a part time version of the course which will give you more space (and complete over 2 years)

Option 2 and 3

There are people in the college paid to help people in a situation like yours. Might be worth your while talking to Student Counselling.

In some colleges there is peer to peer support (students who provide low level social support to others).

Hope it works out

LLMMML

You said it's a major university so they have seen all this before and won't be fazed by it. You're obviously having mental health issues, whether they're temporary due to your situation or more long term. Go to the college health service and discuss your issues. Be upfront with them that these issues are affecting your course and you're not sure if you can complete it. In a major university you'll usually have some sort of advocate such as a tutor or supervisor. You need to discuss your options with them. Given it's still the first term you might be able to work something out. In the major uni I was in, we were advised that a med cert BEFORE an exam was taken seriously and would give you options such as supplementals. A med cert AFTER an exam was worthless. Putting all this off will make the situation much worse.

LegacyUser

Op - get your ass into the admin/course directors office and tell them all of this. ALL OF IT! There is a way around everything, believe you me. It may come to allowing you to split your modules over 2 years, or some such thing. You are obviously able for it, but what you're missing is time to put the work in, and it's making you panic. There is no college out there that wants students failing, especially at Masters level - they will help you find a solution.

I'm speaking from a huge quantity of experience - I've spent the last 2 years doing a part-time Masters while working full-time (in an unrelated job) and for some reason, last year I felt it was a good idea to get pregnant with our first child, who was born earlier this year. I'm now staring a thesis deadline in the face (since January!!) and I have a child who does.not.sleep.during the day. I'm trying to do remote research!!! And I've to go back to work in a few weeks. But hell, if I can do it, you can too. And I have been inches away from throwing in the towel in the last few weeks so many times, but nothing short of sheer grit is pulling me through this. You can do it, and it will feel like an absolute Everest at times, but you can do it.

But your number one step - tomorrow- is to contact the college, make an appointment to talk to someone and go in and explain your predicament. Now.