On the 2nd August at 00:55, 3 hours before I was due to leave for the airport, I submitted my dissertation.

At that point of time, I felt the weight of three years hard graft leave my hands, pass through cyber space and reach an empty waiting room. Had I done enough? Had I started early enough? Had my mental health prevented me from achieving what I knew deep down I was capable of yet again? Only time would tell.

As I sat on the plane, I managed to leave all thoughts of my dissertation, my degree, my search for employment behind. I enjoyed my holiday, celebrated the end of an era and trusted that my result would reflect the work I had put in over the last three years… and it did.

I calmly resumed my job search and researching my next options. One Friday morning, I refreshed my email to find no news regarding marks but still proceeded to check my results page…. 80. Wait. What? 80%? Surely that’s a mistake? Or maybe I’m looking in the wrong place… I refresh the page… 80. Wow. Just two weeks earlier I had emailed my head of school requesting an alternative option other than the dissertation because I genuinely didn’t believe I could finish it. Not only did I finish it, I got a first. A high first too… wow.

For anyone reading this who is currently working on a piece of academic work or professional project that they feel is to overwhelming to finish… keep going. It’s worth it. It’s part of the process. If I hadn’t hit my “wall” then I wouldn’t have the sense of achievement I do now and probably wouldn’t have achieved such a high mark. I hit my wall because I knew what I wanted to get across was beyond my current skill level, it was outside my comfort zone. It involved complex remapping of brain networks, deep levels of connection and analysis, hours of reading and concentration but… I did it.

Anything worth achieving will be outside our comfort zone’s, and yes we might feel overwhelmed by the process, but that’s ok. Embrace it. Talk about it. Ask for help. I was surprised how much a 10 minute phone call with a stranger from my course team helped motivate me to continue but most importantly don’t give up!