How I did it: I just completed my masters in Public Health Practice in the UK.
I am Canadian, so the system took quite a bit to get used to. I quickly learned that  when translated, the term "self-directed study" actually means "you are doin it all on your own, buddy".  I am not sure how different my course was to others, but we had very little teaching time and you were expected to find out everything out and had one paper to pass the course (which was worth 100% of your mark). 

It was a lot of hard work, but I learned a lot about myself as well as the actual topic. 

Lessons & tips:

1. Time Management: it really is key. Try to find out when and how you work best. For me, I had to do most of my work in the morning because I was too tired in the evening to do anything productive.
   
2. Routine: Try to find some sort of routine that will help you get motivated to do work, even when you don't feel like it. I had to go in to the city and study at the library.  Getting out of the house, meant I was less likely to watch "America's Next Top Model".
   
3. Be assertive: You can't wait for others to do things for you (even when they are sopposed to). We had a practice placement in the community that was compulsory for 6 weeks.  Our supervisor was sopposed to arrange this for us, but took so long to do this, a few of us went out and found our own placements. We were the only ones who got the placement done in time.
4. Have enough time to run through your rough draft with your professor:  Most WILL do this for you. It is invaluable and will keep you going in the right direction.
   
5. Find previous examples: Sometime the prof will post examples of good papers and this is a godsend. If you can't get a hold of these, there may be some part-time students that may be willing to share their papers. Obviously you have to be very careful not to plagiarize.
   
6. Get to know others in your class: this sounds like a silly thing to suggest, but I only saw my classmates a few times the whole year.  It is good to keep in touch with others going through the same thing you are. Make the first move..organise a night out!
   
7. Enlist the support of your family/friends, etc:  Make sure they know that you will not be yourself for the duration of this course:)  I have a very supportive partner (who did a Phd), so he understood the ups and downs of this undertaking. You will have huge highs and lows and its important for those close to you to understand this and hopefully, help you through it.
   
8. Take some time for yourself: YOU ARE NOT YOUR DISSERTATION:) This took me a while to figure this out.  It is very easy to be completely caught up in your course and think of nothing else.  Again it goes back to time management, but it is OK to take the day off once in a while, go for drinks with your friends, go to a movie, go to the gym, have a massage...anything that will bring you back into the land of the living..it is the only thing that will keep you sane.

Resources:

1. The Library: One of the best things you can do is take a short introductory course that will introduce you to the library services. It will save you SO much time.  Find out how to search their online database. There will sometimes be short courses on how to do this; it can be a lot more complicated than you think. Again, this will save loads of time.
   
2. Sign-up for email alerts from journals that deal with your subject.  I didn't even know this existed, but it's a great resource! It allows you to keep on top of current research and topics that are developing in your field. Another good one is a "media alert". In Scotland, you can recieve daily emails that give you links to newpaper/media articles about your subject. This also allows you to keep on top of everything current...you may even know before your prof!
   
3. If you find things really stressful, don't be afaid to contact the university's councelling service. It's sometimes good to have a unbiased sounding board. They will also be familiar with the other resources in the university and could point you in the right direction for other needs.

Good luck! You can do it!!

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Sep 27, 2008, 10:42AM PDT | 1 comment | 2 cheers