Finally Found A Method For Watching Online Lectures That Works For Me!! While I Watch A Lecture I Take

Conversation topics for incoming college freshman

(Here’s a link to my tips for college freshman worried about how to make friends)

Hey! I’m Em, a socially awkward person who has yet to master the art of conversation. To help all you people who might feel the same, here are some questions to ask beyond the basic ‘where are you from?’ and ‘what’s your major?’ I hope you find it helpful and I hope you kill it at college!

1. What dorm are you in? Do you like it so far? 2. Did you know your roommate before you came to college? 3. Are there any clubs you’re looking to join? 4. What is the farthest place you’ve heard someone here is from? 5. Why did you choose your major? 6. Which dining hall is your favorite so far? 7. Do you have any pets at home? 8. What other colleges where you looking at before you chose this one? 9. Which class are you most excited for? 10. Have you gotten lost yet? 11. Do you know of any haunted buildings on campus? 12. Do you know any upperclassmen? 13. Are you interested in rushing/do you have any family involved in Greek life? 14. Opinions on astrology? (For some reason, college peeps are big on zodiac signs) 15. Biggest fear for the upcoming semester? 16. Do you have a car on campus? 17. Have you climbed the rock wall yet? 18. Are you looking to get a job this first semester? 19. Whats your favorite thing that you bought specifically for college? 20. Do you have a favorite meme?

Now, these are all pretty basic starting points, so remember that after they answer, give them a two part response. First, react to what they said. Then, add onto it to provide the other person with something to respond to. Good luck!

types of study breaks for every situation

if you realize you’ve been studying for hours: grab a snack to refuel your body and watch a sitcom to refuel your brain. then back to the books.

if you’re feeling stressed out: take some deep breaths, text your friends, maybe stare at a wall for a few minutes. gather yourself.

if you can’t seem to focus: get moving and get outside. take out the garbage, check your mail box, maybe walk your dog. just get moving and get fresh air. it’ll help bring you back.

if there’s something else going on in your life and you can’t get it off your mind: write down what’s going through your head, sort of like a diary entry. it’ll help you work things out.

if you’re just mentally and physically exhausted: set a timer for 25-30 minutes and take a nap. any longer and you’ll hit REM and you’ll wake up feeling just as tired. once you wake up, get some caffeine in you.

if the material is boring as hell: find another way to study. see if there’s a crash course video online about it or draw out what you’re trying to learn in diagrams and pictures to make it fun.

if people around you won’t shut up: listen to some music. soundtrack and classical music is always good because they won’t absorb you as much as music with lyrics. white noise (like ocean waves, rain sounds, etc.) also works.

if you only half understand a concept: call/message a friend who’s not in the class and try to teach the material to them. this will help you mentally work through the material and will help you remember it as well.

new city // new study spot // august 22

my masterpost | my studygram | ask me anything

[click images for high quality]

[transcript under the cut]

Other advice posts that may be of interest:

How To Study When You Really Don’t Want To

How To Do Uni Readings

Active Revision Tips

Keep reading

life really is so simple when you sit back and realise you don’t actually have to do a lot of things. i don’t have to be on my phone constantly. i don’t have to sit inside all day. i don’t have to reply to peoples messages straight away. i don’t have to have what’s in my fridge. i can go out and get groceries and make things that I’m craving. i can go on a walk. i can turn my phone off for a day or two. i can sit and read for hours on end. i can journal for as long as i want. i can mediate. i can cook. i can clean. i can breathe deeply. i can get myself a tea or a coffee. i can have meaningful conversations with my family. i don’t have to be in a constant state of “online”. i can disconnect. I’m not obliged to be here. my name isn’t being called out on a list. i can leave. i can take time away. i am allowed to live.

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

TALK TO ME IN KOREAN IS ALL PAYED NOW!!!!

Do you have anything at all from TTMIK to share for free???????? I like they curriculum but I can't pay subscription. My parents won't give a cent for Korean. They think I will have more success and oportunities if I learn French or German. I would appreciate anything you can give me. Tnx a lot! Love ur blog!

Hey! Here ya go! You can begin with this (all levels are included): audio, textbooks, workbooks and stuff like that.

I also have few of their "kpop fan letters" and books like that. But I don't think it can help you much at the beginning.

7:49am; 08.08.22

summer is wrapping up and it’s been hours and hours of reading

dec 1st which means november memories （╹◡╹）♡

What did you learn about people? How might a person who is not studying develop their bullshit-ometer?

“What did you learn about people” is much too broad to answer given how much is covered in a three year bachelors degree. Everything from theories of the self, errors biases and heuristics, attitudes and emotions, theories behind behaviours, social influence, group affiliation, psychological development from childhood to adulthood and its effect, models of personality and individual differences, memory, how we learn, the psychology of choice and decisions, and the genetic/biological/social/environmental factors of all of the above and what happens when it goes wrong and becomes pathology.

In terms of developing a bullshit-ometer, or improving your judgement and understanding of evidence, the key is practice. For a module in my first year we were given a paper every week and a prompt sheet to fill in that effectively helped you tear the paper apart. Prompts included everything from the method and sample size, to the statistical tests used, whether they were used appropriately, and whether all of the assumptions of each test were met, etc. It would take me upwards of two hours to get through a ten page paper, and even then I’d miss things. Three years on, I can skim a paper or article or hear a person’s argument, spot any major red flags, and tear it apart under exam conditions in thirty minutes. It takes a lot of time and work to be able to do it quickly. Having it embedded as a philosophy into everything you’re learning helps as you start doing it unconsciously eventually.

Resources:

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. To me, an absolutely essential read.

The Art of Statistics by David Spiegelhalter. Spiegelhalter is a statistical genius, and he’s now spending his time trying to change the way statistics is taught, moving it away from learning loads of formulas and then trying to figure out how they relate to evidence, towards the PPDAC (problem, plan, data, analysis, conclusion) model. To understand evidence and pick up the misuse of statistics (aka bullshit) you need at least a basic understand of stats. This book does it perfectly, in plain English, with interesting examples. I wish it had been published when I first started my degree.

I Think You’ll Find It’s A Bit More Complicated Than That by Ben Goldacre. This is a collection of most of Ben Goldacre’s columns which used to appear in The Guardian, in which he takes a claim in the media or a new study and tears it apart. It’s an interesting read, might change your perception on a few things, and is him tackling bullshit in practice.

Reckoning With Risk by Gerd Gigerenzer. There are lots of complex statistics in this (which he signposts and you can just pass over), but understanding how statistics of risk work, and what they mean, will completely change how you read and assess a lot of claims made in the news.

The Students 4 Best Evidence blog. It mainly covers evidence based medicine, but the key concepts transfer to all research and claims outside of medicine. Anything under the bias, critical thinking, intro to evidence-based practice, and statistics topics is relevant. Particularly anything tagged ‘tutorials and fundamentals’. Their Key Concepts Archive is a good place to start.

The Testing Treatments website. Again, covers medicine, but most of the points generalise out. Under each concept, say ‘association is not causation’, there is a ‘find learning resources’ link that will find papers, online courses/modules, and books about that concept.

Cochrane Training. Cochrane are the gods of the systematic review. All their online learning modules surrounding assessing evidence are here.

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, either the book, or the online course. The perfect crash course in reasoning, arguing, avoiding fallacies, picking apart other people’s arguments, and finding bullshit.

The Clearer Thinking website has a range of tools/mini modules. Relevant ones here:

How well can you tell reality from B.S.?

Interpreting evidence

Belief challenger, making your views more accurate

Guess which experiments replicate

More books.

A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics: A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World by Daniel Levitin

How To Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff