Things falling apart in university
I'm an aspie, and I'm currently in my second year of my Masters in Library studies. And right now things are going to hell in a handbasket.
In all of my previous academic years, I had no trouble in handing things in on time. I was able to meet deadlines and criteria with few problems. But this year, it's like all of that competence has gone flying out the window. I'm finding that I'm asking for extensions more and more, and am struggling with assignments more and more. I don't know if it's because the assignments are too difficult or what, but I wind up spending so much time devoted to single assignments that I dont have enough time for others. Two assignments that I barely managed to hand in on time were so sloppily done, due to not having enough time, that I wasn't surprised at all when they came back with horrible grades.
My second year is falling apart at the seams, and the worst part is, this is the year where I have to worry about leaving a good academic impression so I have plenty of references for getting a career. Instead of leaving a good impression, I'm just getting sloppier and sloppier. I've been feeling nothing but nonstop stress the last two months, and the last three days saw me getting maybe ten to twelve hours of sleep, combined.
WHy the hell is this happning? Things have never been this difficult for me before, and I'm not even losing concentration on tasks as badly as before. I feel like I'm well on the way to failing this year, or completely self-destructing. I don't think I've ever felt this frustrated, stressed or helpless.
A lot depends on your program. Is there a fixed curriculum specifying X credits per term, or is there more variability? Masters programs differ.
If it is not a fixed menu [and even if it is] talk to your adviser or the most likely sympathetic faculty member you can find, try to lower your course load. Even if it adds a term to your timetable, relieving the pressure couls help.
In my experience the bigfgest and most frequent mistake students make is overloading.
If it is not a fixed menu [and even if it is] talk to your adviser or the most likely sympathetic faculty member you can find, try to lower your course load. Even if it adds a term to your timetable, relieving the pressure couls help.
In my experience the bigfgest and most frequent mistake students make is overloading.
Well, I've passed the due date for dropping courses this semester (hell, the due date was before even the first courses were due, which was a bummer, because otherwise I would have dropped some of the harder ones after seeing my earliest grades). I have registered with Accessbility Services, and they've told me, that, if necessary, I can discuss some of my worse grades with them and see about getting those removed due to my Aspergers, but somehow I just feel wrong about doing that.
I don;t know if its due to the fact that I have more/tougher assignments than I did in the previous years. Maybe I do, and maybe the increased difficulty is what's causing me to cave in under pressure. Maybe I just need to talk to someone about my lack organizational/time management skills and finding ways to improve them. I dunno. I've just been feeling so damned stressed this semester.If this continues, I'm scared I might have an emotional breakdown or something. But above all else, I don't want to fail this year.
