I have finished everything that I previously set myself which I am very happy about because I was worrying about how the illness and other work was setting me back. This week I am in a much better position with my history coursework and am on top of all of my other work so I feel that I am in a good position with my dissertation. I have however changed my schedules from Thursday-Thursday to Monday-Monday because of the way last week panned out. My next grid is as follows:
I obviously have the next section of my dissertation to write and although I have the sources and I know what it will contain - this is with all the sections I have planned and written - I like to do a more detailed plan explicitly for that section so that when I write it there are as few difficulties as possible because I know exactly what I am going to say. A potential difficulty with this week will be having to fill in the SAQ alongside this because it will take time, especially as I have to write another personal statement for it. I therefore hope that I can get everything done but if the SAQ takes longer than first thought I shall do this over finding sources for history because I have half term to do that and the SAQ is due in next week so although it is not urgent it is more urgent than that.
I am fairly confident that I shall get everything done on time for this week.
Due to a combination of having a really bad cold and a lot of work for my history coursework which has a much closer deadline than my EPQ and consists of a large percentage of my overall A Level Grade I had to place my EPQ on the back burner. In my previous deadline I said I would complete both my military and generalship paragraphs by the 9th of October and due to illness and other work this didn't happen. I did complete one section (military) so I will just have to adapt my deadline. Potential problems this may cause me will be if it takes a lot longer than I thought so I get behind on writing my dissertation as I need time to proof read, evaluate and do a presentation on my project as well then I will get behind on my EPQ. However I am much happier with the argument presented in my plan for generalship than I was with the military section - it was a lot more obscure and less fluid - therefore I am optimistic, due to the detail of my plan, that I should be able to finish and stay on target. I may just have to change the deadline dates i.e. rather than going Thursday to Thursday go Monday to Monday.
I plan to have got at least 75% of my Generalship section done by the end of the weekend beginning the 11th of October and then have it finished by the end of the 14th when I have a half day.
Therefore my Eisenhower grid for these next few days is this:
This is a slightly shorter deadline which may cause potential difficulties, however I feel that because my main plans with my EPQ overlap a lot and I have planned them in so much detail I should just be able to write the sections with little problems. I have decided to write these two sections before finding the sources for the rest of them because I want to make sure that the way I am planning these sections is efficient and understandable when I go back to write it, otherwise I may find I have to redo all my planning when I really need to think about writing my dissertation to finish on time. A potential problem with this might be that I write these sections then feel I don't know where to go next but this is where my overall plan comes in, this means I know exactly what is going to be in my dissertation and where I just haven't found the sources yet therefore meaning even if I do write it in sections my dissertation should flow nicely.
Now that I am writing I have also found an academic - James Romm - to email because I am particularly interested in his views on the Persian armies that Alexander faced as a Forbes article written by him which I read had some really interesting points I would like to discuss and it would be nice to put some primary research in there. I think getting the email written and out is my next immediate step and then writing and hoping he will reply.
Since my last post I have completed everything I planned to in my previous deadline/short term plan and this is the one replacing that.
Now I know exactly where I am going with my dissertation I am dealing with the more detailed areas of it, this basically involves finding all the sources and points to be used in the sections of my dissertation. As the first two sections in my dissertation have some overlap - they have a very militaristic basis - I have decided to plan and find the sources for those together (Military and Generalship). I am optimistic in completing this on time as the college library has many books I can use as I have previously checked and I already have lots of ideas I just need to write them down.
In my last post I explained my new short term planning method which I had hoped would keep me focus and on target for handing in my dissertation and EPQ fully completed on the 1st December through the setting of mini-deadlines for me to meet. I am very happy to say that I am finding this really useful and I have achieved everything I set out to do in the first short term plan of this fashion, I therefore plan to continue using these until the end of the project.
What I have found is good about these plans is that by giving myself a limited time to complete something I get the work done more efficiently and often quicker which is good time management, I am quickly learning that to work efficiently and on target for my end goal I need deadlines to meet and am very glad that I have found a way to achieve this within my EPQ. Negatives of doing this is that it is putting slightly more pressure on me as I am adding deadlines to the ones I already have of history coursework, UCAS applications etc., to make sure this does not get on top of me and stress me out to much I am having to prioritise a lot more than I am used to. For instance as my UCAS deadline was closest that was my main focus and whenever I had time I fitted EPQ in around that, however now my immediate workload is dying down I have found that I am coping a lot more. This demonstrated to me a benefit of another aspect of my short term planning - the length of time I estimated. I over estimated for the last one because I knew I would be busy and I am glad I did as without it I believe the shorter EPQ deadline would have caused me unnecessary stress and maybe even disheartened me. I therefore plan to do exactly the same for my next short term plan / deadline which I will post shortly.
I am happy with my progress and the deadlines are certainly a part of this.
As Summer has just finished and I got a lot of work for my EPQ done then I am going to change the format of my short term plans slightly as rather than focusing on lots of different things every week there will be a bigger focus on particular research topics and planning for my dissertation. Therefore my Eisenhauer Grids may be less frequent but more targeted, this way it will keep me on track and I will only have to update them when I have completed everything for my EPQ I planned to do in this time set. In this way I will also be setting myself short term goals to complete, I feel this will really keep me on track and on top of my workload as rather than having one distant deadline I will have lots more to keep to which will ultimately keep me more organised. I learnt this over Summer where I had an amount of work I wanted to get done and my deadline was simply the end of Summer, this led to a lot of work during the end of Summer as I’d been caught up in history coursework and other subject work before then. I feel that if I had set this mini-deadlines throughout Summer I could have finished all my work bit by bit in an organised manner. This is why I have decided to set mini-deadlines using my short term plans as the frame work for it.
My first short term plan is going from my first EPQ session back after Summer for two weeks. It will basically involve me fleshing out my initial plan while doing my research. My aim is to continue researching and by the end of the time I designate have got a final plan framework.
I have given myself two weeks for this because it is the first two weeks of college so I will be getting used to year 2 and getting started with all my A2 work so I will be very busy so I've given myself longer than it should take me.
After this has been achieved, if I don't achieve it in time I will reassess my short term planning and improve it, I plan to then begin researching for the big points I come up with here and create plans for these paragraphs.
I am satisfied with my progress so far and am optimistic about the future, I really feel having these mini-deadlines, as they were before term ended last academic year, will really help me keep on task.
This is where I am in terms of my progress and as I can see I am a little less than a quarter through my entire EPQ progress and my main focus now, and during the rest of the summer holidays, should be on my research and all the things related to it so that by the time I return to college in September I am in a good place.
A potential problem I am beginning to see with my long term plan is how I may have been very ambitious with my timings - for instance my research time is the same for that of the planning of my dissertation and I am thinking the former will probably take longer than the latter if I do it very thoroughly. Therefore I may have to be flexible in my timings, I am thinking a possible solution to this would be to alter it so I have a spare week/month or so at the end which can be used as sort of insurance time in case some things do take longer than I gave them credit for. I plan to start going through things in the summer, see how it goes and decide whether or not I need to do this by the end of July however seeing into the future in this way is very difficult and will continue to be a challenge.
I have chosen to create only one short term plan for the whole of Summer because my targets will remain the same until I return to college. I basically want to get a lot of the research done so by the end of the Summer I have a skeleton of a plan ready to use for further, and more in depth, research. I particularly want to focus on contemporary sources because I fear these will be in shorter supply and harder to understand so the advantage of Summer is that I have longer to analyse them. Problems that may occur will be juggling all my other college work particularly writing my personal statement and my history coursework which is essential to my A Level with a nearer deadline so I will probably prioritize that over my EPQ for the couple weeks of Summer.
Looking at this short term plan I can see my next steps are mainly research and I hope I will be able to achieve my goals by the end of Summer as I have achieved everything that was previously asked of me.
NOTE: Looking at my Gantt chart I have realised I've forgotten to include the Mid Term Review which I will need to do before coming back, I would class this as not started and in the important but not urgent box.
This is my second short term plan which I have created between now (2nd July) and when I break up from college (8th July) which is coincidentally the day I am also scheduled to give my presentation, I have achieved everything on my previous plan so all the tasks are highlighted green with the exception of the research and literature review which is an ongoing process though there must be evidence of both before I break for Summer. I am making good headway with my research and literature review and have got my bibliography up to 10 sources which will ultimately help me with researching, however these tasks will continue and be an ongoing process.
My next steps in terms of EPQ, and looking at this grid, are:
Create my presentation, I think this will be my priority now and I shall put my research onto a back burner for now
Finish my research with Keegan's A Mask of Command as I must return it to the library by the 8th
Continue research and literature review
I am pleased with my progress so far as I have done everything except for my presentation out of the tasks I must have completed by the time I break for Summer, I will then have more free time to really buckle down with the research and begin to construct my own opinions and ideas from which ideas for my dissertation can be born.
Due to the unforeseen situation that I miss my supervisions next week due to Open Days and Moving On Day which means I don't actually have any supervisions left with my actual supervisor, this means I can't actually do my presentation when I first said when I made my plan (Friday 4th). This has been solved by me going to present in another supervisor's group which will take place on the 8th July instead. This means I have more time with which to create my presentation so I have had to edit my Gantt charts.
This was my initial grid which made my long term plan which I am in the middle of updating:
Here is what I changed about my long term plan and an updated version of my progress Gantt chart, as you can see I am still in the beginning stages of it but I have completed some areas of it such as my title verification, long term planning and learning about sources.
Hi - my name is Robyn and I'm currently a Sixth Form student doing an EPQ. My EPQ is on Alexander the Great and whether or not he truly deserves his epithet of 'great'. I wish to study history or classics at university so I am hoping this EPQ should help me achieve this as an end goal.