Introduction

Abstract

This is a book about choices; not just the obvious choices you already know that you will have to make at university (which courses to take, which books to read) but also those choices that you may not yet have thought about (which lectures to attend, which career to choose). This is not a conventional study guide; there are many useful books available that will help you to write an essay, study a work of literature or present at a seminar. What this book is all about is the management of your degree, the ways in which you can make sure that you have the best time possible and achieve the right result by the end of your course. The book does not, for example, teach you how to skim read a reference book, but it will tell you how to choose which reference books to read and which to discard. It does not aim to teach you how to write an essay, but it will show you how to plan your time so that you can get the essay in by the due date without having a nervous breakdown in the process. The book also helps with those areas of student life that are not covered in traditional study skills guides, such as how to make your money last to the end of your course, how to cope with peer pressure and how to make the most of your tutors.