The Time I Wrote My Med School Dissertation In 15 Hours.

As a quick introduction to me, I’m a medical student based in the UK, with an interest in mental health, migrant health, and social justice.

As a new Vocal (and otherwise) writer, I wouldn’t classify myself as an actual writer, in fact until two weeks ago I had never willingly written anything in my life.

For most of my life, I have hated writing. I have always wanted to like it and be good at it but I have always struggled with it and would say I am mediocre at best. But, I’m currently on a journey to change all of that.

My most recent big piece of writing, was my University dissertation, this time last year.

The assignment: 6,000 words on a topic of our choice in the field of Global Health.

Now, this is a bit of me. This is my forte.

I chose to specifically focus on the mental health of migrant children in the UK (I’ll write about this at some point in the future, so keep an eye out).

This is an area of Medicine and social justice that I have been engrossed with and advocated for, for the past four years. I knew the facts, I knew the leaders in the field, I knew the statistics I needed cite and the references I needed to collate.

But 6,000 words, this was going to be rough.

Needless to say, the procrastination was real. Assignment set in September, due in April.

That’s fine, 8 months to do it in. No stress.

So, that whole “no stress” vibe? Yeah, that was kind of still there 2 weeks before the deadline.

The stress increased. But as did the pretty impressive avoidance behaviour.

1 week to go and I caved, I began to work. I’d collated all I needed to start writing, clarified all the up to date statistics, pulled out quotes I liked, and approx. 100 browser tabs later I was 1,000 words in and struggling big time.

The content of the dissertation I’d chosen was fine, I loved exploring it and reading about it.

But writing about it? Putting my thoughts into words, onto a page, for someone else to read, was exhausting. It felt impossible.

So, I procrastinated some more.

15 hours to go until the deadline: I’m still only 1,000 words in and 5,000 words to go.

5,000 words in 15 hours. For someone who despises writing, isn’t all that good at writing and would really rather like to hand this assignment in on time.

Just a tad bit of a challenge, to say the least.

Somehow I managed it. Somehow I put all those thoughts together, cohesively, in an academic piece of writing that counted towards my mark for the full year.

How I got through those 15 hours, as someone who does not write on a regular basis, in fact hates it, I honestly don’t know. But I didn’t care, it was done and I needed to sleep.

2 weeks later, the results are in.

94%

…Sorry, what?

Yeah, I’m not going to lie. I actually don’t know how I managed that. I think the memories of those 15 hours are in the part of my brain that kindly wipes out anything traumatic.

So if you came here for advice on how to successfully write a dissertation in 15 hours, sorry to disappoint, but I genuinely don’t remember.

I’ve read it back a few times since and grammatically it actually isn’t that bad. This is usually the area of writing that fails me the most, so I was convinced large chunks of this essay just weren’t going to be readable.

Why am I writing this story then?

A few reasons I think.

The first being that my abilities surpassed all of my expectations. Was my confidence in my writing what was hindering me all along?

I think I’m yet to figure this one out entirely, but it certainly is a possibility. I guess I will begin to learn this through feedback from other writers on this platform and naturally adapting and improving my writing style as I increase my writing outputs.

Secondly, when I write about something I am so passionate, intrigued, and fired up about, it went well. More than well, in fact.

Every single piece of writing I had done, up to and including that point, was for purely academic purposes. This was the first writing assignment, where the educational purpose overlapped with my specific interests.

So, from now on I’m going to venture (somewhat hesitantly) into the writing world. Not on the back of that dissertation result whatsoever.

But because I can see the benefits in writing. Particularly when it is something you are interested in. You get to share your knowledge, reflect, learn, engage with others and input something tangible and potentially even intellectual into the world.

So, we’ll see how it goes.

If you don’t see my Medium account active in a few months’ time, then you’ll know why.

But, here’s hoping.

For those that did come to this article for tips on how to write a dissertation in 15 hours. Here it is: don’t.

Just start it as soon as you get it. Please don’t leave it for 8 months like I did.

I didn’t get that result because I was following a secret “dissertation speed writing matrix” or whatever, I think I may have just been lucky.

If you have any comments, feedback or would like to get in touch, please feel free to message me via Twitter on, twitter.com/SaraAliUK

Initially posted on Medium on 22/07/2021