Getting help if you’ve fallen behind

Many students enrol in a course full of enthusiasm, then are shocked to find several months later that life has thrown a few curve balls and they are now falling behind with their vet nurse studies.

If this is you, know you are not alone in this challenge. Feeling overwhelmed and unsure how to resume your studies and create a plan for completing your course work is common.

Today let’s start with the simple things.

Firstly, acknowledge there is no need to beat yourself up about where you are now. Your situation may not be ideal, but being upset or disappointed at yourself certainly won’t help change that.

Instead, I recommend you get a fact-based reality check on the situation so you can contemplate where to go from here.

Specifically –

1. Take the time to read all the emails in your student account slowly
2. Look in your student folder to confirm how many subjects you have left to submit first attempts for and how much time is left before your expiry date.
3. Then take a breath Allow yourself some time to digest the information gradually without jumping to conclusions
4. If you start to feel panicked, call student assist and ask some questions to check you are understanding the above things currently.
5. Next book a wellbeing call with me and we can come up with a time management plan (or whatever else you need) together.

Then take a breath.

These are first steps to helping you get back on track. Celebrate that!

While you allow this information to sink in a bit, consider why you enrolled in the course in the first place.

• Are the things that excited you still relevant?
• Are your study outcomes, dreams and desires still the same?

Keep these motivations front of mind while you give yourself time to digest the facts you’ve gathered about the work remaining to complete your course.

If you find your mind getting negative, critical or overwhelmed, try to come back to the facts relating to your course. Its easier said than done, but keeping a clear head will make decision making easier and faster.

Done all of that?

When you are ready to progress to the next step we can start looking at your schedule and get a clear plan together for when you can make regular time to do your study. I will talk about that more in the next article which you can read here.