A thesis is formed in the introduction of a paper, and can be simply described as an explanation of your position on a topic, supported by certain points. In the body of your paper following your introduction, these points should dictate the order and content of your paragraphs.

Let me give you an example.

Now remember, when choosing a position, you should avoid obvious facts that are well-known, and focus in on more controversial, obscure positions that can be supported with ample evidence. So, for example, we know that Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany, was soundly defeated in WWII. An interesting position to take, therefore, would be the following: “Hitler could have won WWII if he had taken three different approaches in his military policy.” What this position does is it uses a non-truth to help highlight the subtleties of the truth: that Hitler lost WWII. This position helps us better understand how and why Germany was defeated, and will be of interest to a history professor.

Following the statement of the position part of your thesis, you need to come up with points to support your position. It’s all very fine to make a statement, but we look foolish if we have nothing to back it up with. In undergraduate studies, it is expected that students will use the arguments and writings of established intellectuals to back up their position. Luckily, in this case, there are many intellectuals who have examined why Hitler’s initial success in WWII ended in such total defeat. An examination of these intellectuals, and a selection of quotes from their books and articles allows us to form the following points to back up our controversial position:

“Hitler could have won World War II if he had taken three different approaches in his military policy. First, if Hitler had not associated himself with the other imperialistic power, Japan, Germany would not have been subject to the fury of the United States following the attack on Pearl Harbour. Second, if Hitler had not invaded Soviet Russia, there would have been no Eastern Front, manned by the ‘frantic patriotism of the Soviet people.’ Third, if Hitler had allowed a stable and coherent administrative base to form directly beneath him, instead of micromanaging his generals from afar, then Nazi aggression would likely have been characterized by greater probabilities of tactical success on the battlefield.”

In the above thesis you will note that I have come up with three points to support my position. I did not come up with these points out of thin air. Rather, after much reading and research, I decided that the evidence weighed most heavily in favour of these three points. These three points in turn, support my position.

In order to get an A in university in papers of over 2000 words, it is a good idea to provide one strong counter-argument; in other words, find the weakest point in your argument and attack it for one paragraph. This shows that you are a responsible, unbiased academic, and your professor will go into hysterics of joy. Following this one self-critical paragraph, return to your own position and dismantle this counter-argument with the superior evidence of your position.

Now one last point about how your thesis should guide the outline of your paper. For example, in a 2500 word paper, I would recommend the following structure:

1 long paragraph for Introduction

2 paragraphs for first point.

2 paragraphs for second point.

2 paragraphs for third point.

1 paragraph arguing against your position (counter-argument).

1 paragraph refuting the counter-argument and affirming the evidence-based establishment of your position.

1 paragraph for the conclusion.

Arrange the quotes you gathered into three distinct piles, and start explaining your argument in the order you presented your points in the thesis.

Remember, your introduction tells us what you are going to talk about and why it is relevant and important. Your conclusion tells us what we have learned after reading your paper, and restates your points in light of our new understanding of the evidence you presented.

• The first thing that you have to remember is that you should never let anybody influence your final decisions. Of course, you should respect the opinions of your supervisor as they know a lot more about what will gain you marks than you do, but at the end of the day it is you who is going to have to do the project, and this means that you have to make sure that you are doing it on something that you understand and care about.
• Choose the right supervisor AND the right subject. Although you might choose a supervisor based on which subject you would like to do, there isn’t all that much point in choosing somebody who you know that you have struggled to work for in the past, as this will make things difficult for you. In the same way, you should not choose a subject based upon the supervisor that you would like to have, as you have to be really interested in the thing that you’re doing otherwise you’re going to hate every minute of having to put so much work into it. 
• Research. Of course, by this point in your degree you should about the things that interest you, but a dissertation is all about finding a gap in the research; finding a new angle to look at something that has never been considered before, and this is something that you need to think about. However, you don’t want it to be so innovative that there is no previous research on which you can base an opinion, so you have to make sure that you’re not being “clever” to the point of shooting yourself in the foot. 
• Don’t be scared to change your mind. Once you’ve got an idea in your head, you don’t have to stick with it until you’ve submitted your form to gain approval from the ethics board. You can change your mind as many times as you like up until this point, and this is certainly something that you shouldn’t be worried about having to do. It is much better to take the decision to change your mind now and then enjoy the project that you’re doing rather than end up being stuck on an idea that is absolutely no interest to you at all. 

10 ways to prepare for university 

1. Have clear aims of what you want to gain from your education and why you are going in the first place

2. Save up the more money you can have to support you , the better your time and work will be

3. Remember it is more than just an education and therefore plan how you are going to fulfil the experience (i.e. join a sports team, become a member of union, join a society, volunteer)

4. Define who you are through your attitude and style; you are going to meet many different people from different places, what impressions do you want to make.

5. Find accommodation which is near to other accommodations and most importantly your university, especially in your first year you need to be in the hub of the university not travelling miles.

6. Teach yourself to cook , learn what is affordable to cook and where you can shop.

7. Remember it is your education, look into the modules and the areas which you are most excited about the more you know and the more excited you become about the stuff you will be learning the better you are likely to do.

8. Prepare yourself emotionally, it is a big move to university, have a good idea how often you can come home and spend some quality time with the people you love and care for before you go.

9. If you are sharing kitchen and bathroom; buy distinctive things such as patterned plates or coloured towels, it can get hard to keep on track of whose is whose when they are all white

10. Don’t panic; you will be fine and find a way to make it work for you.

What should you do once you have finished school? continue your education or head straight out to work? While their is no clear answer I think most people would benefit from going straight out to work once they have finished their GCSE’s.

The reason? Nowadays employers value experience more than qualifications, you can be train on the job for a lot of things. And if todays statics are anything to go by you will probably be earning more than most of those who went to university.

For some university is still worth while but with the rising fees its not as appealing anymore and it may not even been worth going, once again university is for the rich. But thats just my opinion, what do other people think. For me I would go back and not bother with college I feel its made me worse off.

“ It depends on your major.”

“ in my opinion it is better to get a higher education as you are (usually) more likely to get a job with a higher qualification.”

“ Depends on your goals. A lot of people go straight to a four year, getting it done, all while working a part time. Then there are those that have no intentions on going. They are usually the ones that work right away. A few take a break and then go. It all depends on what you want to do.”

“ It depends on what you want further down in life. Do you have some plan for what you intend to overall with your life. Investing time in educating yourself is good and will give you advantage over the others, however if you go to college for the purpose to avoid working a job – that’s silly. You only need education for the reason of achieving some bigger purpose. On the other hand you can get self educated via books, courses, internet ,etc. (again it is for fulfilling a bigger goal that you might have) . 

Getting a temporary job also might prove helpful (if you never had a job). You will learn new things, some real things from the real life and get some experience. However be careful not to get stuck with a job you dislike. 

Smart people don’t work just for the money. More likely they work to learn and gain experience which they can implement further in life for achieving a desired goal. So yea.. it seems like it boils down to having a clear goal.”

It seems its never too late to go back to school and learn something new, this 91 year old senior proves that.

Bertie Gladwin has just completed his masters degree in Intelligence History and now plans to do a PHD. Bertie didn’t want to do home learning so he joined twenty-something students in the busy corridors and classrooms.

This story amazed me, even more so because I’ve recently written two articles about whether its even worth going to university, clearly Bertie thinks it is! Going back to school is certainly an interesting retirement choice. Although is certainly keeps the mind active, I wonder what the other students must have thought and Bertie when they first saw him.

Funnily enough what they were studying in the Classroom the senior student had actually lived through it himself. That must have certainly helped him with his studies.

Here is the link to the original article, plus my article: is it worth going to university? And, Life After School?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/i’m-not-stopping-yet–91-year-old-becomes-britain’s-oldest-masters-graduate.html

Financially these, can be the hardest years, because not only does the course cost a lot of money, but the amount of things that your child is going to need to be able to live on their own is even higher. While a lot of parents do have the funds to be able to do this, this certainly isn’t the case for all, and you should never feel as though you have to pay for them. By the time they go to do their degree, they are adults, and this means that they should be paying for themselves by this point. You should encourage them to get a job while they’re at University, and you could even help them to look in the local papers and on the internet to see where students are being given jobs. 

With regards to getting ready to move, they probably won’t have any idea about what to you. You should help them to make a list a few months before they go of everything that they think they’re going to need, and this means that there is plenty of time to buy things and add things to the list if there is anything that you find you forgot about. Going to buy their things for their new home is exciting for them, as it is the first chance that they will ever have had to be able to decorate a place exactly the way that they like it. Provide them with support, but don’t try to force them into buying things that they don’t like, because this really does have to be their decision.

While they’re there, try to keep in regular contact. By this, I mean perhaps a couple of text messages per day and a phone call each week to see how they are. Although you probably won’t be able to give them much advice about their work, you could talk to them about it so that you at least know about what they’re getting up to. Make sure that you ask about their social life as well, but don’t feel bad if they don’t want to give you too many details! 

The first thing that you should talk about is how they’re going to organise themselves. Coursework and assignments are very much self led in sixth form, and this means that they are going to have to take the time to consider how they’re going to fit all of their work in without falling behind. You should provide a place for them to work that is away from any distractions, and make sure that they understand just how much they have to work. Most colleges recommend 5 hours per subject per week, which makes around 20 hours of extra study. 4 hours each day, keeping the weekends free for personal activities, usually works the best. If your child has free periods during college, then you have to trust that they’re using these for work if they tell you that this is the case. Sometimes, you can have two or three free periods, meaning that a lot of the work really can be done in college. The only way that sixth formers learn is by their mistakes, and they will realise that they need to put more work into their studies when they come to their first set of exams.

The next thing that you have to do is talk to them about what they would like to do when they finish their A Levels. Although it might seem strange to be talking about this now, they need to be thinking about their future, as the next couple of years will fly by for them. You should find them lots of University prospectuses, and take them on open days if they would like to go, and then you can feel as though you’re being involved in their decision. The more you are involved, the more they are likely to tell you about what they’re deciding, and that will be great for your relationship in the long term.

Although you might not think that there is much you can do to control the behaviour of your yougn adult, you should still try to encourage them not to spend too much time at parties and then not enough time studying. There is plenty of time for that at University, when it is at least legal to drink, so it is important that they get their head down and study hard so that they will be able to get into the course of their choice at the end of their A Levels. Although it is a tricky process, if you work together as a family, you should find that you are all a lot stronger for it. 

As a child, each and every one of us has dreams of becoming a doctor, engineer, teacher or even president of a country. As the time passes by and we grow up, some of us are lucky enough to fulfil those dreams, while others remain behind closed doors and not able to achieve any of their dreams. Let’s imagine for a few minutes, what happens to those of us who are ambitious and have not been able to achieve their goal? Despite the fact they have devoted their whole life to the purpose of achieving one goal.
Let’s take the example of someone I have known for a very long time; he wants to remain anonymous. Ever since, I have known him, he has been a very ambitious and hard-working person. As a child he wanted to work in the media industry as a PR Executive and it was the only job he wanted. He was a good student at school, with an excellent character.
He wasn’t the brightest student in the class, but was average, yet very ambitious and diligent. As we grew up together, he successfully graduated from High School with good grades and proceeded to go to college. After graduating from college, he went to university to study a degree course to follow his dream. While studying full time he was working part time in order to cover his expenses. In addition, he attended unpaid work placements with major PR companies, which would be useful for him to secure a job once he graduated from university.
He graduated from university with a Merit grade, which he didn’t expect. He was shocked and disappointed with the grades because the low grade meant that it might jeopardise his long term goal to become a PR Executive. But he remained hopeful that he could start a career somewhere in PR industry.
After sending thousands of applications and resumes for two years, he didn’t find work in the media industry, so he decided to apply for jobs in the banking sector, as he had previously worked as a part time customer sales person. But it seemed he was running out of luck, as he could not find a full time job in the banking sector.
When he graduated, it was the start of the recession, which made it even more difficult for him to get a job in any sector. Like thousands of other graduates he was also the victim of the recession. After two years of searching for a full time job in all sectors, he was still jobless, although he worked as a part time customer service representative, which wasn’t his ideal job.
During this period, he had been borrowing money from credit cards and banks as he used to hold an excellent credit scoring. But he was unaware that he had borrowed too much. Four years later, he was still working as a part time customer service representative for a company, and he was only earning just enough to cover his rent. He was really worried about his health when he realised that he had borrowed $60,000, which he could not pay back any time soon.
His only hope was to buy lottery tickets, if he could win a lottery to pay back his loans. Although he didn’t consider himself lucky enough to win a lottery, he remained optimistic. Buying lottery tickets was giving him hope rather than anything else.
I had no idea that a degree course would cost you so much. If he had not followed his dream to study, he would not have been at the same position as he is now. Education is supposed to make your life better, not worse, but I have come across several people who have been left without hope after earning their degrees.
There is a question in my mind, after all those years: was it worth dreaming, spending most of your time and money in education?

Feeling homesick is something that is perfectly normal and, while you might want to be on the phone to your friends and family from home every day, this is not something that should be advised. You should set specific times that you are going to get in contact with them, and make sure that you stick to these times, otherwise you will be finding that you don’t manage to move on from your old life at all. With regards to actually seeing your family, it makes sense to arrange at least a couple of days out each term so that you don’t have to go for several months at a time without seeing anybody. If you do this, then you will always have something to look forward to when you’re feeling a little bit down.

An important thing that you should always remember when you start your course is that everyone is in the same boat as you. Most of the people will never have lived away from home before, and this means that they will probably feel homesick as well. You should do your best to talk to them, and you might find that they are surprised when they realise that there are other people who feel the same way that they do. Whenever you hear about other people’s experiences of university, they always sound as though they’re having a great time, because that’s what they want you to think. They will be choosing not to tell you about all of the times where they have missed home and felt down, because they won’t want to talk about it.

The thing to do is to try and throw yourself into as many activities as you possibly can during your first week. The busier you keep yourself, the more likely it is that you are going to be able to take your mind away from the fact that you’re missing home, and that it a very good thing to be able to do; particularly in the early stages. In addition to this, going out as much as you can to whatever events are organised means that you are going to be able to meet people and therefore make new friends who you will be able to talk to if you need somebody there for you.

This is one of the biggest stages of your life, and there is no way that it is going to be emotion free. But if you manage to get through the first couple of weeks, which you will, you will then realise that actually university is a wonderful place and it gives you the chance to grow as a person more than any other chance that you’ve had before. 

                Whenever the term “economics” is mentioned in discussions and on the television, most people visualize things such as money, banks or even stocks. Although these objects do related to the topic of economics, it is not the complete picture. Essentially, economics is the study of the consumption, production and distribution of resources within a system known as an economy.  Money and banks are factors affecting the price of resources produced, but should not really affect the amount of goods produced and consumed in the long run. The term resource does not only reflect only upon materialistic goods such as gold, oil and copper, but it could also be refers to something known as human capital. Human capital is the idea that the skills in which each worker possesses is considered to be a form of capital/resource. Therefore, it is important to not be mistaken by the term “resources” by only associating it with materialistic goods. After explaining a few basic concepts of what economics is, the main topic of this article is determining the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics. Although the two terms sound very similar, the difference between the two is quite large.

                The term microeconomics typically refer to the ideas and concepts that analyze the economy making the assumption that the economy is only restricted within the confines of a nation. A circular flow diagram is a perfect example in depicting some key concepts of microeconomics. In a circular flow diagram, it shows an outer circle and an inner circle. The outer circle is the total  production and consumption of an economy,  which shows how the firms uses the worker’s labour as resources to produce goods and services  The people producing the goods must also be the one’s consuming it. Therefore, there Is a feedback loop. The inner circle is used to show the total expenditures in an economy. The inner circle shows how the money flows in the economy. The firms pay wages for workers and the workers’ pay the firm for their goods. The company takes part of the money as profit and the rest are reinvested back into the company to pay future wages or increase company capacity.

                Supply and demand are the most basic and essential concept mentioned in both micro and macro. The idea of supply and demand always exist within the economy because there will always be sellers and buyers in the market.  Supply is the amount of goods and services that someone is willing to sell at a specific price. Demand is the amount of goods and services that someone is willing to buy at a specific price. The intersection of these two functions is called the equilibrium point. There are many factors that could cause these lines to shift and move up and down the curve.  These factors include natural disasters, availability of a cheaper substitute good and taxes incentives from the government.

                The term macroeconomics refer to the idea of viewing the world as a single economy and examining how each country influence each other through trade. Some of the topics mentioned in macroeconomics are GDP, GNP, inflation rate, exchange rate, supply of money and world prices of goods and services.  GDP (Gross Domestic Product) accounts for all the total goods and services produced in a country. GNP (Gross National Product) accounts for all the total goods and services produced by people with a specific nationality of that country. The difference is that GDP calculates all produced goods in Canada regardless of a person’s nationality. On the other hand, GNP accounts for all the good produced by  a Canadian and not necessarily all the goods which are produced in Canada. It is possible that someone is Canadian and is producing goods in a foreign country (foreign direct investment).

                The exchange rate and inflation rate are both in relation with the supply of money in a system. As more money is printed out, the exchange rate will decrease because the value of each dollar decreases. Since the value of money is diminishing, it will require larger sums of money to buy the same amount of goods and therefore inflation exists.

                Overall, these are only some concepts than a give someone a little taste of microeconomics and macroeconomics and is not a true representation all the topics in this field. The topics I have covered here is only about a chapter or so and therefore should not be used as review material.