Coping at College – Research Resources and Mental Health

Stressed student in bedroom

│By Evelyn Moran, Gale Ambassador at the National University of Ireland, Galway│

When I first started university just over three years ago, I had a bit of a cry to myself that first night alone in my room. Part of me wanted to call my mam and say, “I don’t know what to do, please come get me”. Orientation week was jam-packed. There was lots of wandering around with a map in hand, asking for directions and following people I recognised, working out whether I had time to make the Philosophy talk, or should I go straight to Celtic Civ instead? My friends from home were at different unis, and I wasn’t all that great at starting conversations with new people. (One time I talked about a wobbly chair until silence took over…) It got easier, but many things remained jumbled.

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How I Survived Studying in Lockdown – and You Can Too

Digital drawing of person studying and stressed

│By Emily Priest, Digital Marketing MA student at the University of Portsmouth│

Deadlines. They are hard enough to deal with – the stress, the never ending reading lists, the work that keeps piling up, the ominously unfinished dissertation – but what happens when you add a pandemic into the mix? Panic and pandemonium. It was a seemingly impossible challenge yet, somehow, I managed to embrace the unique insanity of it all and make it out in one piece.

When lockdown hit in March 2020, lectures were cancelled and the library shut, but university work was still expected on time and many students were thrown into a panic. I was one of those students and although I didn’t have a final year dissertation to hand in, I still had valuable assignments that would make or break my final MA grade. How was I going to cope? At this time, little was on Moodle (the online learning platform used at Portsmouth) in terms of teaching materials so, like a lot of students, I felt more than a little stranded.

But I was determined not to let the situation beat me.

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The History of International Women’s Day and the Origins of Women’s History Month

By Rachel Holt, Acquisitions Editor for Gale International

Happy International Women’s Day (#BalanceforBetter) and may your Women’s History Month 2019 be an enlightening one!

Every year March marks the month where several countries around the world celebrate female contributions to society by recognising their achievements throughout history. However, the origins of how both these events came into being are themselves fascinating episodes in feminist history. If “history is written by the victors” then who decides which people and events from the past deserves our attention?[1]

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