If you’re looking at this it is most likely you’re at least considering a Masters degree. I am currently studying an MSc at The University of Edinburgh and thought some advice and tips on surviving an MSc could be helpful! My name is Emma Stephenson and I graduated from NTU in 2018 with a 1st Class Honours degree in Zoo Biology. If you’ve graduated or you’re in your final year now, you’ll know that it is an understatement to say that final year is more intense than your previous years. I was prepared for my final year, I worked hard, kept a good routine and did well, so I thought ‘well really how different can an MSc be from
Be prepared to work hard and manage your workload!

It obviously depends on the course and the university. The University of Edinburgh is an amazing university and I still can’t really believe that they accepted me! So I did know that I would have to really work hard to do well. But for me, it was still way more intense than I expected. So my first piece of advice here is you really do need to be prepared to work harder than you did for your undergraduate degree and work hard from the very start. Assessment wise I had two or three summative assignments for each of my five modules plus any formatives as well! In one way, having multiple assignments is great because it means it takes all the pressure off one assignment. However, if you’re a bit of a perfectionist (like me), you will tend to put maximum effort into something regardless of whether it is worth 10% or 100%. So when I first got my list of assignment deadlines I immediately panicked and thought there was no way that I could do this amount of work on top of full days of lectures four days a week. But a good tip that
Be a student with a social life

With all that being said, you need to make sure that you have a life outside of
Do some pre-reading

Another important piece of advice would be to do some research before you start. Many course websites will provide an overview of

At the end of the day you need to remember that an MSc is a whole new level and a big step up. But it’s not impossible, you just need to work hard and have faith in yourself. Yes it will get stressful and I’ll admit it was a struggle at first! But yes it is also such an amazing achievement that provides great opportunities both socially and academically and I am so, so glad I did it!
By Emma Stephenson
www.linkedin.com/in/emmastephenson34a264171
Emma is an Alumni F
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