Radio Silence - Final Year University Woes - Vlogtober

Right, well this has been a little bit odd for me... as you might have noticed (or not) I recently took a little break from posting on here on Liquid Grain.  

This wasn't a planned break, I actually didn't even think about my lack of posting that much because things got super busy for me!  

As I have mentioned before, I schedule my posts in advance (I have to, I'm way too busy) so when life kinda caught up with me I just ran out of scheduled posts, and I didn't have the time to write any more!  

So what's been going on with me?
As you guys probably know I am a student (here I wrote: A Student's Guide To St Andrews, Scotland and here is my 2015 guide on What To Take To University) and I have just started my fourth and final year up at the University of St Andrews after taking a year out do an internship in France.

I knew that coming back to university would be a little bit of a challenge, not only because I had been out for a year and most of my friends graduated last year (here) but also because I'm not living in St Andrews this year and academically it's been a big change. 

To explain.... 

In First and Second year I took three subjects each semester, where I usually had two lectures a week and a tutorial.  So quite a lot of contact time, although it didn't count towards my degree. 

Third year was my first year of Honours and it was a big step up but I loved getting a more in depth look at my chosen subjects.  I took two subjects a semester, one for each part of my degree (International Relations and Middle East Studies).  I had one class a week for each of the classes, although it was a seminar- a mixture between a lecture and a tutorial.  Third year counts towards half of my degree.  

Now I am in Fourth year and there is even less contact time which means I have to be really good at doing independent work.  For the International Relations aspect of my degree I am doing a dissertation which means I need to do a LOT of work by myself, I also have a dissertation skills workshop lecture and tutorial every other week.  Whilst in Middle East Studies I am taking one weekly class which lasts for the whole year which is focussed on one very specific aspect of Middle East Studies.  There is only four of in the class (which is great) and we mostly look at primary source documents in class and write essays for our course work (like normal).  Fourth year makes up the second half of my degree classification. 

So this has meant a whole new style of learning and working for me to adapt to, and when I moved up to university I was focussing on that not blogging! 

However I did decide to try and up my YouTube skills (which are appalling I know!).  I have been dabbling in YT for a little over than a year and I am trying to get better at producing content.  So I decided to attempt Vlogtober on my channel, if you don't know what that is but it is where you vlog every day in October. 

I've not managed to post every day but it has been good for making me post more often!  If you want to check it out you can see my channel here and my Vlogtober videos here!

Sorry for the rather rambly, almost diary like post today but I just wanted to update you on what has been happening in my life and offer an explanation for my radio silence.  I hope you forgive me and you can get where I am coming from- if you are also having final year / university struggles right now you are not alone!  

I will try and get back on the regular posting wagon, if you have any ideas for my posts then please let me know down below!