setting intentional goals and holding yourself accountable builds trust in your own abilities and self confidence.

set a goal and try to meet it. you deserve to prove yourself.

08/08/22

finally getting started on my uni readings for fall! i'm still figuring out how to best extract information from reading assignments that are entire textbooks

live blogging writing my 3,000 word final paper (inspired by @paperbackcollection )

current word count: 0/3000

for: democracy & authoritarianism module

time: 3.05am

rijksmuseum.

things i learnt during my first term at uni

have a system to classify and organise your notes!

whether you type or handwrite your notes or write them digitally, make sure you work out a labelling system to keep all your documents in order.

i have google drive folders for every year and class and label things by week, lecture slides and notes/seminar notes/reading document/reading notes using abbreviations.

W1L1 - Pol0004 is Week 1, Lecture 1 for HSPS004 et cetera

don’t be afraid of office hours!

to me office hours seemed super scary, as with many new things at uni i didn’t know what the exact procedure would be and thus shied away at first.

the office hours i actually attended were genuinely useful and in case you also feel a bit iffy about going, i recommend sticking to a few key points to get the conversation started

1. why are you there? - easy but prepare to talk about a) the class, b) the assignment, c) the readings, d) the workload, e) the professor’s research, f) further materials, g) …

2. what help would you benefit from? - assignments, extracurriculars in a specific field, internship ideas, how to access or find out about certain services on campus, ... etc.!

TRY. don't be afraid to fail, you might even succeed.

instead of holding yourself back because you either don't like being amazing at something first try or because you are afraid people might be better than you at something and you would feel "out of place", just show up! go and try out for this really random thing, run in that election for this cool society you wanna hold a position in, go to castings and submit your writing to competitions, don't be afraid to try new stuff! i went from being afraid to participate in a selection trial to being offered a really amazing opportunity and from committing to a debate tournament (fully expecting to bomb) to actually ending up in the finale. and even when things don't go amazing and you rank last, you tried, and that's worth a win.

last but not least: give yourself breaks and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

london in autumn.