Whether they admit it or not, students across all departments feel a lot of anxiety towards their first assessments, especially during their first semester. To put it bluntly - most feel like they have no idea what they’re doing or how to do it.
A first-year English Literature student (who’d like to remain anonymous) revealed: "I knew that assessments at University would be different to A-levels. However, I do think it is somewhat unfair that we just get asked to immediately write an essay with no idea what is expected of us or what constitutes a 'good piece of academic work.'"
Yet, a question can be asked: is the lack of guidance on what constitutes a degree-level piece of work just a part of higher education? Perhaps new students just have to learn to adapt to independent research and academic writing over time. The evidence has never shown that this method of learning does not achieve good results, as we still see a very high proportion of students graduate with firsts every year.
Moreover, the University library here at Newcastle does provide a series of academic support, with links on their website to guidance on how to research, how to approach different assignment types and how to submit those assignments.
Thus, maybe a solution to helping ease students' anxieties, but maintaining the independent study that is expected at a university level, is for departments to spend more time going through the quality of work required and more guidance on how to research.