{"id":175,"date":"2012-10-28T19:42:56","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T02:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ericchow.me\/blog\/?p=2670"},"modified":"2012-10-28T19:42:56","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T02:42:56","slug":"overinvolved-student-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/2012\/10\/28\/overinvolved-student-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Overinvolved Student Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every year since second year of university, this process always happens to me. Every. Freaking. Year. Let me explain through the magic of gifs:<\/p>\n<p>1. Classes are so interesting! Way better than what I was learning last term.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mao7j1Qp2z1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>2. So much free time. I should join a bajillion clubs on Clubs Day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.troll.me\/images\/x-all-the-things\/join-all-the-clubs.jpg%20\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" height=\"203\" \/><\/p>\n<p>3. After joining a bajillion clubs and forking a lot of money to said clubs.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mao6ta6fjW1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>4.\u00a0I&#8217;m so inspired to do more for other people and the community. I should apply for a position or two (or three&#8230;or four&#8230;).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mary6f0vSm1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>5. Damn, so excited to be [insert position title] at [insert organization name] doing [insert job description]!<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_lw3yx2f55N1qddght.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>6. Repeat #5 2-4 times.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thepoint.ubc.ca\/files\/2012\/09\/jonah-hill-excited.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>7. Proceed to spending all my free time doing #5 and #6.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thepoint.ubc.ca\/files\/2012\/09\/Seinfeldcelebrate.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>8. Ehmegawd kill me now, I have no time.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mao8p80EJq1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>9. Commit seppuku.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/gifs.gifbin.com\/092009\/1253885876_suicide.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As time progresses, I&#8217;ve discovered this is what is called &#8220;Student Leader Problems.&#8221; Don&#8217;t believe me? There&#8217;s a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sl_problem\">Twitter account<\/a> for that.<\/p>\n<p>Now after 3 years of university, I&#8217;ve discovered what I am truly passionate about instead of doing random things because it peeks my interest just a tiny bit. Now I&#8217;ve broadened to organizations outside of UBC and they are even more exciting and incredible than the ones on campus.<\/p>\n<p>So far my involvement schedule includes:<span id=\"more-2670\"><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two jobs: Hollister and the English Language Institute. Both of are awesome jobs and I&#8217;m really glad I&#8217;m working with great people.<\/li>\n<li>5 courses: 4 psychology and 1 business.<\/li>\n<li>Involved with a few school clubs, like CVC and Right to Play.<\/li>\n<li>1 volunteer opportunity that is in the works, but one that I am so passionate about. I&#8217;ll blog about it as soon as I get it secured.<\/li>\n<li>A mentorship\/connectorship program with the Burnaby Board of Trade.<\/li>\n<li>Dragonboating with Dragon Heart. So addicting, it&#8217;s crazy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And things were going great&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Until\u00a0I found out I had 9 midterms, 5 finals, and 3 papers.<\/p>\n<p>At first I was like<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_mbwwc2An591ry6dwj.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Then I was like<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_maoyxzjN0p1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And then this happened<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_masdg5gy4L1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And this is me now<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/media.tumblr.com\/tumblr_map2d8zj7f1qmirjn.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a total of <strong>14 exams<\/strong> this semester. I&#8217;ve had midterms since late September and they last until mid-November, not to mention having 2 midterms and a paper on the same day and 2 finals on the same day. I&#8217;m just on the edge of my seat every day and my Google calendar looks a rainbow threw up on it.<\/p>\n<p>The good thing about this, and this took me awhile to figure out because it felt like hell at the beginning, is that I&#8217;ve learned that I don&#8217;t procrastinate as much. Truth be told, I don&#8217;t have time to procrastinate. It&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m super efficient now, but I&#8217;ve learned to manage my time better.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some tips that I&#8217;ve been doing that have pretty pretty effective:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Know your limit<\/strong>.<br \/>\nAlthough I would love to be working a lot with international students while making some sweet money too, I know that school is more important at this point. The first thing I did when I noticed I was falling behind was cutting back my hours at work. Then I was able to study and do homework in between classes instead of staying up until 3 in the morning. Don&#8217;t\u00a0overexert\u00a0yourself.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Use a calendar.<\/strong><br \/>\nI can&#8217;t stress this enough: as much as you think you can fit you can organize your life like an Ikea catalogue in your head, it&#8217;s so much easier when it&#8217;s laid out in front of you. At first it&#8217;s stressful seeing all that you have to do, but it&#8217;s the first step to success. Then you can arrange meetings in between classes or reschedule appointments until you have a break in between exams or papers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don&#8217;t be a party animal.<\/strong><br \/>\nAs much as I&#8217;d love to go to all the cool events happening around me, I really can&#8217;t. I pick and choose things I find I absolutely want to go to and leave behind things that aren&#8217;t as important. It&#8217;s a hard thing to do because all your friends are going, but you have to value what you think is most important. For me, that&#8217;s school right now. Plus, you get to save some money from conference fees, entry fees, and booze money.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>To everyone who&#8217;s having similar to problems or just time management in general, how do you manage it all? I&#8217;d love to hear how you are being awesome and how you deal with it. Please leave a comment below and share some ideas!<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This blog post is inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/whatweshouldcallubc.tumblr.com\">#whatweshouldcallubc<\/a> and if it not for the genius behind that blog, I would not be able to complete this post. I have no idea what ninja skills he\/she has to find all these gifs. *slow applause*<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year since second year of university, this process always happens to me. Every. Freaking. Year. Let me explain through the magic of gifs: 1. Classes are so interesting! Way better than what I was learning last term. 2. So much free time. I should join a bajillion clubs on Clubs Day. 3. After joining [&#8230;] <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/2012\/10\/28\/overinvolved-student-problems\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629018,629019,629020,1250,629021,629022,629023,261,300,629024,629025,1750,2223,629026,37,232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animated-gif","category-animated-gifs","category-complaning","category-funny","category-funny-gif","category-gif","category-gifs","category-involvement","category-life","category-problems","category-reaction-gif","category-sfu","category-student","category-student-leader","category-ubc","category-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/blogsquadalumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}