Too much work

onethreefive

Hi!
I am completely overwhelmed by the volume of work I have to do! My head is wrecked by the amount of work!..

I spent most of the midterm doing work yet I still have more to do that is due tomorrow! I just can't do it! I am actually contemplating leaving school as my life has been completely took over by it.

I really don't want to do this as I know I need to stay to get into college. I was really looking forward at the start of this year to finally finishing school and moving onto college but at this stage I don't think I will be getting to college as I cant even get through this year!..

I feel so different to everyone else as they all seem to be getting on grand but I'm not. My sister achieved really high points and everyone keeps saying I'm going to get even more but I know I am not and I just can't take living up to her results anymore. What can I do? I'm so upset by this as I used to be able to get through school ok without much stress but now I am completely stressed and its only November.

PelicansX4

Have you any idea what course you would like to do in college?

onethreefive

I really have no idea. I keep changing my mind. At the minute I want to do Art's in UL which is 400+ . I'm really afraid college will be a 4 year extension of this year in terms of workload and if it is I could not deal with it.

Corvo Attano

onethreefive wrote: »

Hi!
I am completely overwhelmed by the volume of work I have to do! My head is wrecked by the amount of work!..

I spent most of the midterm doing work yet I still have more to do that is due tomorrow! I just can't do it! I am actually contemplating leaving school as my life has been completely took over by it.

I really don't want to do this as I know I need to stay to get into college. I was really looking forward at the start of this year to finally finishing school and moving onto college but at this stage I don't think I will be getting to college as I cant even get through this year!..

I feel so different to everyone else as they all seem to be getting on grand but I'm not. My sister achieved really high points and everyone keeps saying I'm going to get even more but I know I am not and I just can't take living up to her results anymore. What can I do? I'm so upset by this as I used to be able to get through school ok without much stress but now I am completely stressed and its only November.

Panic is your enemy. You need to take a step back and re evaluate where you are allocating your resources. I'll not tell ya how many times I wanted to just give up, let the LC pass me by. Stress so high you wonder would it be easier to just jump into traffic. Its not. Its worth it.

Every teacher is grasping for your time so you get a high result in their subject. They dont give two flying fúcks about and other teacher or subject. They want you to focus on their subject.

This is where its on you to realistically draw a line on what work can be done and why work you just have to say no to. My Irish teacher was forever lumping on essay after essay so everyone just had to say no to most and do which ever they thought benefited them the most.

The LC is a mass of high stress torture. College isnt like this. You have to bear your teeth and hit this head on. Once your through the other side it gets easier.

Also some inspirational music does wonders. Make a good playlist. This was one of mine. Keeps ya going in the hard times.

onethreefive

Thanks for the reply!

I am not going to do what I have to do for tomorrow. I literally can't. I will tell the teachers concerned that I didn't not do it because I wasn't bothered I just didn't do it because I had so much other things to do. I'm not concerned with what they will think of that because I am gone past caring and it's the truth. I just can't take this amount of work anymore.

ynwa14

Take it from me, I felt exactly like this at the beginning of sixth year. Heck I felt like this after my LC was done and over with. I let the potential huge amounts of work get to me, just the mere idea of how much there was to do made me shut down. I stopped working and caring until after my mocks if truth be told. I don't suggest you do this but I do suggest you consider where you're at. I felt so bad for taking time for myself because I felt too overwhelmed to study in the early/mid months, but I shouldn't have. And you definitely shouldn't have. Idk if you're a "party" kind of person, because I wasn't, but if theres something going on that you're into or wanna go to, do go and that'll alleviate a lot of pressure. Taking your mind off the work by hanging out with friends is good. I spent a lot of time in isolation not doing anything, and I felt bad because I could just as easily be in the next room over studying like most others in my year were (or claimed to be, a lot of people exaggerate!!) but I didn't take into account the fact they were out drinking all weekend and going to parties and whatnot and I used my unpopularity :P to my advantage and did homework to keep my mind off that. So for me, that balanced it. Sure I felt like I was doing nothing during the week - I couldn't cope with the long school day and then coming home to do MORE unnecessary in my view stuff. That's what worked for me, so just find what works for you.

My school wasn't very hard going on us, as in they didn't expect us to do well so they didn't try to push us in any subject. Sounds like your school isn't like that, which is probably a good thing. If you get half that stuff done, you're gonna be alright.

If it means anything, I went from doing relatively bad in my Mocks (300ish) to getting 575 in my leaving. I started college at UL in August and dropped out before October. Turns out I couldn't hack away at doing something I wasn't interested in. I wasn't been given a big ENOUGH workload to spark any kind of interest in what I was studying, and I didn't bother aiming for what I really wanted to study (medicine) during my LC because I thought I wasn't putting enough work in. The only thing I changed between pre mocks and after mocks was how smartly I studied my subjects though. Don't waste your time on the easy assignments you get, the topics you know inside out. Once you know them, they stick by you in June. Try and make a breakthrough with the tough topics you know are likely to come up, armed with that you'll be fine.

Seriously good on you for working all midterm, I certainly always saw it as a holiday, not extra study time :P

onethreefive

ynwa14 wrote: »

Take it from me, I felt exactly like this at the beginning of sixth year. Heck I felt like this after my LC was done and over with. I let the potential huge amounts of work get to me, just the mere idea of how much there was to do made me shut down. I stopped working and caring until after my mocks if truth be told. I don't suggest you do this but I do suggest you consider where you're at. I felt so bad for taking time for myself because I felt too overwhelmed to study in the early/mid months, but I shouldn't have. And you definitely shouldn't have. Idk if you're a "party" kind of person, because I wasn't, but if theres something going on that you're into or wanna go to, do go and that'll alleviate a lot of pressure. Taking your mind off the work by hanging out with friends is good. I spent a lot of time in isolation not doing anything, and I felt bad because I could just as easily be in the next room over studying like most others in my year were (or claimed to be, a lot of people exaggerate!!) but I didn't take into account the fact they were out drinking all weekend and going to parties and whatnot and I used my unpopularity :P to my advantage and did homework to keep my mind off that. So for me, that balanced it. Sure I felt like I was doing nothing during the week - I couldn't cope with the long school day and then coming home to do MORE unnecessary in my view stuff. That's what worked for me, so just find what works for you.

My school wasn't very hard going on us, as in they didn't expect us to do well so they didn't try to push us in any subject. Sounds like your school isn't like that, which is probably a good thing. If you get half that stuff done, you're gonna be alright.

If it means anything, I went from doing relatively bad in my Mocks (300ish) to getting 575 in my leaving. I started college at UL in August and dropped out before October. Turns out I couldn't hack away at doing something I wasn't interested in. I wasn't been given a big ENOUGH workload to spark any kind of interest in what I was studying, and I didn't bother aiming for what I really wanted to study (medicine) during my LC because I thought I wasn't putting enough work in. The only thing I changed between pre mocks and after mocks was how smartly I studied my subjects though. Don't waste your time on the easy assignments you get, the topics you know inside out. Once you know them, they stick by you in June. Try and make a breakthrough with the tough topics you know are likely to come up, armed with that you'll be fine.

Seriously good on you for working all midterm, I certainly always saw it as a holiday, not extra study time :P

Thanks for the reply!

I'm definitely not a party person, I don't even go out because I don't want to participate in the game as I like to call it that most people play i.e pretending to like popular people and doing things they normally wouldn't.

300 in the mocks is great! I feel like I'm doing bad in everything regardless of the amount of work I do.

Yeah I think I'm doing the same thing as in not aiming for what I really want to do because I don't think I will get the points. I would love to go to UL but I just don't feel like I can get 400+ points.

Most of the work I did though wasn't really revising it was just homework and projects that I need to do.

I'm so worried I won't get the points I need in August.

creep

Just relax, remember if you even get 300 points there's load of courses out there. Because a course is higher points does not make it a better course. I got 375 and only studied a month before the leaving cert. My course was only 320 and knew I would get this. If most of the work your doing is homework then stop doing the homework or do it half arsed

In the working world no one cares about leaving cert results.

onethreefive

Thanks for the reply!

I just feel really guilty for not getting all the homework done for tomorrow. I might try and do the essay for tomorrow later. I know it doesn't make any sense but I keep thinking I'm going to fail everything. I admire people who repeat so much because I could never do it I wouldn't be able!.. Do you mind me asking was the LC easier or harder than you expected during the year?

thelad95

If you feel you have too much to do in one night in regards to homework or studying for meaningless class tests just be honest with your teachers and tell them why you couldn't do their work. They should understand and if they don't then that's their problem, not yours.

Forget what others say as well. If people in your year say they are doing 4 hours a study night that probably means they did their written work and then spent ages staring at a textbook while texting, on facebook etc. :rolleyes: The morning can also be a great time to study. I find going to bed at 10 and getting up at 6 works well. You can't do this every day though. You'll make yourself sick and the Leaving Cert is not worth that.

hfallada

You need look at all your subjects and decide whats important and what is not important. I knew I wasnt going to count ord. maths and Irish, so I focused on getting my c3 for maths(entry requirement) and passing Irish( didnt open a book for it). I had so many friends wasting time and trying to get a good great on a subject that was ord and they werent going to count for points.

I knew I could get an A1 in Business, so I put a lot of work into it and I got it. If you need 300 points and you get 100 points in a subject, you just need to pass everything else at H level to get another 220 points. A1 & A2 are easy to get if you study smart and constantly. I got an A1 in Geography in a year by only learning a study skills book(learning the essays) and dont bothering with a textbook. But I started learning 3 essays a night and constantly looking at essays I already learned to ensure I remembered them

spurious

Break what you have to do into small manageable sections. Even if you only manage to do four or five small sections, it's four or five less things you have to do.

It's very easy to be overwhelmed by how much you have to do and give up before you start.
Keep at it. Even with a few small sections, you've got something done.

creep

onethreefive wrote: »

Thanks for the reply!

I just feel really guilty for not getting all the homework done for tomorrow. I might try and do the essay for tomorrow later. I know it doesn't make any sense but I keep thinking I'm going to fail everything. I admire people who repeat so much because I could never do it I wouldn't be able!.. Do you mind me asking was the LC easier or harder than you expected during the year?

I found it handy enough, but then again I was happy to get around 340 to 400 points. I knew I wouldnt get more because of the effort I put in.I did all higher. Needed 310 for computer science.

Like for me I learned off some quotes for play novel and poems in three days and that was my study for English done.

In Irish I think it took me three days to learn off some words I could use in every section and looked over the stories poems and learn key words from each of them

Biology couple of tricky sections but most of it everyone allready knows. 1 day experiments, 3 days other areas.

If you get me cut it down completely to the minimum you need to know and then start building from that is the way to go. If you look at exam papers and do them out you will see the areas you need to work on.

Don't mind the teachers and there workload, it's not there leaving cert. Tell them you have your own study schedule. It's not prison. I also only attended school two days a week during the last month

onethreefive

Thanks for all the replies!

I'm going to do the homework tonight regardless of how long it takes and then I will get revision books and try and break it down a bit.

I really believe they should change the system asap as the pressure put on people is mental!

Reading all these replies has calmed me down so much. Thanks!

Only 7 or so months to go!

creep

onethreefive wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies!

I'm going to do the homework tonight regardless of how long it takes and then I will get revision books and try and break it down a bit.

I really believe they should change the system asap as the pressure put on people is mental!

Reading all these replies has calmed me down so much. Thanks!

Only 7 or so months to go!

In the last month or two of school when the courses are complete don't be afraid to take days off as well. Take as many as you can. Best of luck

yournerd

I just did hw & study for class tests till xmas, then I would start revising. But over all the midterms I bad friends over for the whole week & did nothinngggg! From April I took so many study says off & I got my first choice in trinity. Like relax and don't think ahead. Think of today and what you need to do, it's all in your head that's stressing you out, have a night off and go drink wine :P

thelad95

creep wrote: »

In the last month or two of school when the courses are complete don't be afraid to take days off as well. Take as many as you can. Best of luck

I tried that last year but it can be a lonely day at home on your own. There's no harm in taking days off when you genuinely know school will be a waste of time but don't discount school altogether at that stage of the year. Some teachers can do very good revision at that stage of the year and also spending time with your friends in school is something you will only miss once you finish school and realise how much fun you actually had.

onethreefive

Yeah If I take study days it will definitely have to be in the library or something. Is it a good idea to continuously do past exam papers?

positivealf

I feel your pain bro, always come home with a bloody headache

What I say to everyone is that this early in the year, most teachers are flying through courses and piling on work to get everything covered by the mocks. If you can't get any study done, that's perfectly fine. Just chip away at your h/w in little pieces.
If you can fit in some study, prioritise! And that word is just so important. I know it's very hard to do. But I hated Geography and I must have only studied it in the last two months of the year. I worked at the other subjects that I knew I needed to improve in. I must have studied Biology 3 times during the year.. (Christmas, Mocks and actual LC) This is because it came naturally to me and I wasn't afraid of doing badly in it. I could have done 2 exam papers a night if I wanted but what would the point have been? Focus on the subjects you actually NEED the help in!