Ah how I remember the day well. It was a day indelibly printed on my imagination and psyche. The day my short but meteoric career at College finally ground to a stuttering halt. Hauled up in front of the University Senate for ?misdemeanours most un-academic? I had my short and sadly undistinguished academic career torn to shreds in front of my very eyes.

The senior academics at my university had a field day. Very much like an academic version of the last ten minutes of ?the Wild Bunch?, you knew you were in for ?a kicking? and sometimes in life you just have to stand there and take it!

My trouble was that if I had been majoring in being a complete and utter idiot then I would have graduated First Class with Honours but sadly for an undergraduate in Social Economics, being an idiot was not exactly good for the old studies.

So I left College, as the legendary British comic Spike Milligan once said, ?With head held high???and feet held higher!?

Why am I recounting some of the more inglorious moments of my youth? Well the real reason lies with trying to understand or coming to terms with why I was such a complete idiot.

It wasn't that I was that stupid (OK I may not be Einstein but my future doesn't lie with just serving fries either!) but more the fact that like most students I was completely unprepared for what lay ahead of me and struggled to properly integrate work and the new found social horizons that most students find themselves presented with when they first hit college.

The other aspect that caused me most anguish on a regular basis was the fact that at the time I struggled to come to terms with the newly required academic disciplines of dissertations (used to call them essays in my day) and the whole process of research, correct organisation and accreditation of sources etc.

I could put in a shameless plug here for some of the new tools that are available today but the best thing I can do is suggest that if you are at all interested in making life a damn site easier for yourself then follow some of the links in the footer of this article and check them for yourself.

Not everyone can be a fully fledged academic but at least today with new technology you have a head start if you equip yourself with the right tools available at your disposal. You have no idea how much time can be saved, how many ?spolling? mistakes can be rectified without you even noticing and if you are not careful you can actually create the image that you know what you are talking about!

Now that my friends, is worth its weight in gold alone. The ability to self edit and correct automatically and quietly without exposing your innermost deficiencies to an outside person is heaven on earth!

Now all I need is to find some software that will make me coffee or more importantly get me a beer!