 Second year is so tough to prepare yourself because it's the worst year of my life. No, for me, the second year blues really hit in. I was so upset and I don't know how I've managed to cope throughout second year. What? What are you both on about? What? Am I going to be okay? I'm literally going into second year now. That's right everyone. I'm here to tell you all about surviving second year and how to make the most of your year at university. And to completely ignore the negative comments that you might hear like those. Firstly, as always, there's a disclaimer. Now, what I experience in my personal life and what I do at uni is literally mine and my own journey. So before you listen to any tips, advice, any horror stories, just remember that this is your journey, your personal journey throughout nursing, throughout university life and it's how you deal with those situations and how you are as a person, not anybody else's. So please take that into consideration before you listen to anybody else. And also, I'm at Birmingham City University. So what my university does and the modules that we have might be completely different to what your university does. So just think about that as well while listening to what I'm about to say. Thank you. So I kept hearing these comments about second year being so hard. It's the worst year making or breaking point for some people. It's the workload goes up. It's horrendous. It's hell. I keep hearing these negative comments. So I went into second year thinking, oh my God, what is second year really going to be like? But do you know what? It's not that bad. It's not that bad. I've had a fantastic second year and the only tough time I've had is towards the end coming to the end of second year. The last few months have been really tough. I'm not going to lie about that. So basically the first half of second year for us, we just had one module, one exam and that's literally it. So the first half of the year was a breeze for us. We were just like, yeah, this is great. What's everyone moaning about? And then come back for the second half of the year. We were given all these different modules, all this workload. We had a care plan, a rationale to write, a mother and baby leaflet, a rationale to write, a poster presentation to prepare for. We had a maths exam. We had an anatomy and physiology exam. We had an assignment, 2,000 word assignment to do. All of this workload just thrown at us in the matter of a couple of months. We were all just like, oh my God, how are we going to do this? How are we going to manage this? But it's not that bad and I'm going to give you two tiny pieces of advice to survive in second year. And these pieces of advice can be input across any university, any person, any individual. These are just transferable advice and tip skills, whatever you want to call it. You can do this. My biggest tip is tip number one, be organised. If you're the sort of person that leaves everything until last minute, no. You're not going to survive second year. Get organised, get your stuff on the ball. Be prepared. Just you need that organisation because if you're lacking behind and you're doing all of that workload all at once, you're not going to make it. You're not going to get the grades and you might possibly fail. And I'm really sorry if that really breaks your heart. I'm really sorry. I don't mean to be horrible, but you need to be organised. Tip number two, prioritise. You want to look at your timetable, your assignment scheduler. Look at what's coming in when, where, what's coming first, what's coming last. Prioritise whichever is due in first. Whatever's first, do that first. Whatever's second, do that second and just do it bit by bit as it comes in. And if you do those two things, you'll be well away for second year. But I do want to say I have no children, no commitments, nothing. I literally have no life. So for me, the workload, the organisation, the prioritisation is easy. It comes easy to me. So if you're the sort of person that has children, you have family at home, you've got a hectic life, it might be a lot harder for you. So you need to just make sure you prioritise and make sure you, I mean, your family are going to be there at the end of these three years. So they, they just have to sit aside for a second, which as hard as that might be because you have to look after your daughter, your son, all of your children. But you have to just say, do you know what, and need an hour, need an hour just to do this assignment, just to get started on it. Just please, everybody just calm down, sit in the other room and just need to do this or wait for them to go to bed, wait for them to go to bed, do your assignments then or get up earlier, an hour earlier, do the assignments then, do it in your breaks at university, do it in your breaks at work, do it on your, if you get the train or the bus, sit and do your work on that because that's an extra, I mean, for me, that was an extra hour on the way to university that I could just sit and do things on my bus. So it was just, it was nice. But I just, I just wanted to say that I do understand that if you have children and families, this can be really tough for you and you all deserve an extra qualification to say, do you know what, you're amazing, you're the superheroes of this world because it must be tough and I can't even begin to imagine how, how people fit this in to their busy lives. It was a lot of workload, there was a lot of revision, there was a lot of researching and there were times where I did struggle to find the research and things and I was tearing my hair out, but you just get on with it, you do it, you can, it's not as bad as, I don't think it's as bad as people make out. People make out second year is hell and it's the worst year of the life. I think that's a bit extreme but then it depends on the person, it depends on the university they went to, it depends on their workload, it depends on the children and the family lives. I can't say what you're going to experience, you have to experience it for yourself but just please get organised and prioritise your workload because that is going to save second year for you. The next thing I want to talk about is this second year blues thing that everyone keeps going on about and I'm just like, what are you on about? But now I actually fully understand the second year blues and for me, I don't know if this is for everybody but for me personally, I got serious second year blues after my poster presentation results and if you saw my vlog before, I was really upset with my result because it wasn't the result I wanted. It was a good result, I got 60% but it wasn't enough for me, I was expecting 70% at least for that module and I was gutted that I got 60% and I got really upset about it and for the next two weeks after that, I went really down, I went really, really down in myself, my self-belief, my confidence. I had such a tough time with it. I had to physically move myself out of the house because it got to the point where I was thinking, I don't even want to go out, I don't want to go and see anybody, I don't want to go to uni, I don't want to go to work, I've got to go to work today, I've got to put a smile on, how am I going to cope? I got really down about it and to be honest, this is the first time I've actually spoke about this because I haven't spoke about it on social media, nobody actually knows this yet, I didn't vlog about it because I didn't want to put any negativity or anything up there but it is important to realise that actually we're all human, we all get those down moments, we all get really frustrated with ourselves, we all lack confidence and self-esteem sometimes and it's okay to talk about and as long as you pull yourself through and get to the other side, stronger and smiling at the end of it is going to be fine. So what did I learn about those two weeks? I learned the second year blues are actually a real thing and I feel really bad that I judged anyone for saying this because I thought second year blues I'll behave, don't be so silly and do you know what? It is a real thing, it is a real thing and it won't affect everybody, some people have a great time throughout second year and they won't feel any stress, they won't feel any negativity, they'll breeze through it, they won't feel the second year blues at all but and I'm the most positive person in the world and even I felt it so if I can feel it, anybody and everybody can feel it and it is a very real thing but I just want to try and analyze it and think actually okay, why did I feel like that? So reflecting back on it initially it was the grade and because in first year you do so well you get the really good grades I got a first overall for first year, my grades went from 75% to 90%, actually 91%, there was a really good good grade in first year so coming into second year the level goes up to level five so the marking criteria goes up as well with it and what you necessarily got in first year isn't going to be the same as second year so it was a bit of a shock going down to 60% and that really hit me and it just made me feel like I can't do this, I can't be a nurse, how can I do this? I'm giving people advice and tips and things on assignments and everything and I've got 60%, that's not good enough and I really put myself down and I really beat myself up over it and I just managed to luckily climb out of that hole that I was in and just say, do you know what, it's okay and I did manage to pull myself out of it and carry on, get my head down, do better for my next lot of assignments because that really gave me a bit of a shake-up so I just went out and I tried to smash my next assignment, I haven't got my grades yet and getting my grades on Friday for my first assignment back, fingers crossed it's gonna be okay but literally apart from those two weeks where I did feel down and I beat myself up, second year has been amazing, it's been so good, the modules are fantastic, I've learned so much, growing in myself, confidence is just growing now as a nurse and the knowledge you gain from second year is just amazing and you start to put the theory into practice and everything's linking together, I have proper loved second year so please, I'm just gonna say it again, make second year your own and your own only, don't listen to the negative comments, don't listen to anything else, have this experience yourself and make the most of second year to really develop yourself professionally and personally. And that's literally all I've got to say about second year, I don't feel like I can say anymore just other than be organized, prioritized and make the most of second year and also get help. If you are struggling, please get help, seek advice from whoever you do at the university, please because you don't struggle alone, it's not fair, it's not nice and no one's gonna judge you for getting that help, so please do it. So that's it, so thank you so much for watching, thanks for tuning in, as always, don't forget to subscribe if you haven't subscribed and I shall see you next time.