This Newcastle student went on the uni’s dissertation writing retreat and I’m high-key jealous

If you’re like me, you’ll have absolutely tortured yourself while writing your dissertation. It’s so hard to stay motivated when completing such a massive piece of work and writing your lit review ends up being the longest, most repetitive three months of your life. It’s just not fun. But, a Newcastle Uni student has shared her recent experience at a university organised dissertation writing retreat on TikTok and I am SO jealous.

Mia, a third year psychology student, shared a day in the life video showing how the retreat worked, including transport, a break for a country walk (!), dinner, scheduled time for TV and board games, and to top it all off, a trip to the pub.

The retreat looks adorable and actually a really productive place to put a shift in. The retreat was hosted from a hostel-type accommodation in Allendale, Northumberland but as there was an overflow Mia stayed in a hotel-type room but she stated not everyone gets that “luxury” experience.

Mia outlined that there were two groups that went on the retreat this year, setting off from Newcastle at 10am and arriving in Allendale at 11ish. The day consisted of three hour writing sessions with 30 minute breaks in-between, all the while being provided with cooked lunch, and “as many snacks teas and coffee as you wanted”.  There were even staff there to lend assistance as and when needed.

What’s more, the best bit about the whole experience is that the retreat was completely funded by the university, with Mia saying that the School of Psychology organised and paid for the entire thing so she didn’t even need to pay a penny.

Annoyingly, Mia believes the retreat is only available for art and psychology students as of now. I agree with loads of Newcastle students in the comments that this is definitely a concept that should be picked up across all the schools of Newcastle University.

One girl in the comments said her hair literally fell out with stress when she was writing her dissertation whilst another student reminisced back to when they wrote their own dissertation, which was “done on monster, tears and delirium”. Relatable.

The retreat is seemingly quite new and I don’t know why this hasn’t been offered before.

Lecturers preach the importance of taking care of yourself while studying, especially in third year with the mountain of stress we get dumped on us, and a little retreat like this is the perfect way to get the well needed break we all need – whilst still being productive.

Newcastle Uni, read the room. We all love the Robbo but there’s only so much sniffing and sticky desk residue one can take. Why are you mollycoddling the art and psychology students? Where’s my country walk and little dessert?

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All images via @miawilliamms on TikTok.