PROBLEMS YOUNG PEOPLE GO THROUGH PARENTS,PASTORS & ELDERS DON’T TALK ABOUT: TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR STUDIES PART 1

Nothing drives learning forward more effectively than enthusiasm , low morale damages the progress. Yet study is intrinsically unsettling and frequently affects your mood. You may be competent and confident in the rest of your life, but study sets you back in the role of ‘beginner’. You find yourself dependent on tutors, whose approval makes your spirits rise and whose disapproval hurts. 

You experience the experience the excitement of new insights, but dislodge old, comfortable ways of thinking. TRUTHS you took to be obvious becomes uncertain, yet new half-formed knowledge slips frustratingly from your grsp. Often it seems you know less than you did – that your studies keep revealing new incompetence.

The uncertainties bring about mood swings in studies: from inspiration to despair, from pride in achievement to collapse of confidence. You have to be ready for highs and low and understand them, o that you don’t get blown off course.

Here’s is  a list of common lows young people go through in studies

INITIAL SHOCK

·         DISRUPTION TO YOUR DAILY LIFE: so many study to fit in, creating pressures on family commitments, social commitments and leisure interests.

·         INFORMATION OVERLOAD: too much to take in; timetables, tasks, deadlines, books to buy, new names and faces, places to find, course descriptions, regulations….so many to mention.

·         CULTURE SHOCK: new ways of talking and thinking, new ways of relating to mates and new environment and so on

PERSONAL PRESSURES

·         LOSS OF CONFIDENCE IN YOUR OWN ABILITIES: apparent lack of progress, and doubts that you will make it to the end of the course.

·         LACK OF STRUCTURE IN YOUR LIFE: feeling disorganized and not in control of events.

·         ALIENATION: feeling set apart from school/work ideas, language, people, attitudes, ways of talking….

·         DISLOCATION: feeling that your studies are distancing you from your family, friends and community.

EVERYDAY CRISIS

·         FEELING OVERWHEMLED BY THE WORK: too many challenging and complicated tasks and little idea where start

·         BAD DAYS AT WORK/HOME

·         STRUGGLING TO MAKE SENSE: feeling adrift in a sea of meaninglessness…

·         EXAM ANXIETY

·         OBSESSION WITH GRADES: irrational concern over why you lost five marks on your last essay, or why your tutor made that criticism, when actually you are doing just fine.

List of stuffs that lifts your morale will be talked about in our next post… keep in touch and stay far away from bad energy.