Lori Malone

Lori comes from Dundee, and is studying MA in English & Film Studies. She hopes to graduate in 2010.

First semester of final year!

Last semester was my first semester of fourth year, an extremely daunting time for me as well as every other fourth year within the humanities department. We began to focus on C.V’s, job applications and our research projects, 10,000 words over the course of the term focusing on a specific subject chosen by ourselves with the help of our dissertation supervisors. The possibilities for this project are endless and picking the perfect topic is just as important as the content. Although it is an immensely stressful time there are dozens of students who are experiencing the same anxieties and fears and I found that within my class we all helped each other through the difficulties.

Approaching the Christmas holidays was the worst period of last semester, 7th December was our deadline and the final details of my dissertation seemed to become more important than submitting it on time. One week before my dissertation was due my tutor sent me an email telling me he was ill and could not advise me in what was the most important week of my university life. My dissertation at this point was still missing a literary review, a full conclusion as well as a cover page and no one could do or say anything to make me feel better about the situation, and I feared that the end could never be achieved.

However, I was lucky enough to be given the life line of a two day extension, although it may not sound like much, in dissertation terms it seemed like a week! I must admit it was very disappointing watching my friends celebrating the end of months of hard work and dedication on 7th December handing in their research projects whilst I slogged though the final stages of my own.

Wednesday 9th December was probably the most emotional day of my university life, after four months of research, tears and endless typing my dissertation, Shakespeare on Film, was complete, bound and submitted. All that was left to do was anxiously wait for 15th January 2010 when we would hear our fate and discover if the months of work had paid off, and thankfully it had.

Without the support of my friends, family and my dissertation tutor I would not have been able to achieve my B grade.

Doing a dissertation really opens your eyes to the help and support which surrounds you at Dundee University and although it was difficult and at some points tedious I would not hesitate in doing one again at Dundee Uni.