By: Will Lawrence

Edited by: Taylor Campbell

Let’s be honest: 90% of us created a Twitter profile to tweet Drake, enter a contest or to stay in the gossip loop. While many people use it for entertainment, there are millions of people who use Twitter for professional purposes. These include (but are not limited to) personal branding, sales, community development, online publishing and job hunting.

Why should you go from personal to professional? The short answer is to market yourself. Many employers are looking for someone who is able to use social media like a pro, has social influence and has created a strong brand for themselves. Even more so, using Twitter professionally can help you learn more about your interests. By presenting yourself in a professional way, experts in your industry will be more likely to engage with you and share their knowledge. It’s really a win-win.

And don’t worry; there isn’t a sharp tradeoff between fun and professionalism. In fact, the best Twitter users know how to have fun and use their personality on their Twitter page to their advantage.

If you created your profile for social reasons but want to start leveraging Twitter for career purposes, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I will walk you through setting up the perfect professional Twitter profile.

Setting Up Your Profile

Before we can discuss tweeting, it might be a good idea to tweak our profiles. This includes changing Twitter handles and profile pictures, creating clever bios and deleting inappropriate tweets from the past.

1. Twitter Handle

This preliminary step is often overlooked. You have probably seen some of your friends have handles like @Stacy_Cupcakes or @MikeLikesBeer. While I’m sure Mike really does like beer, the Twitter handle is often your first impression on people in the Twitterverse. If this is your first handle change since creating your profile, I recommend changing it to something that will be familiar to your existing followers, like your name. If you have a common name like mine, you may need to be more creative and add numbers, additional initials or even location. For example, any of these would be just fine:

• PaulAllen
• Paul_Allen
• PaulAllen3
• PaulAllenLA

2. Profile Photo

Lets go beyond the obvious statement “Have an appropriate profile picture.” What does appropriate mean?

• The best picture you can have is a clean headshot of yourself. This means your head, neck and a bit of your shoulders. You don’t need a fancy picture in a suit and tie, but anything in a properly lit setting should be appropriate.
• If this is your first “Pro” profile picture, be sure to smile. You don’t want to go from fun to overly serious as it will alienate your current followers and ruin the vibe of your profile.
• You can be creative here! This photo is generally the only visual on your twitter page, so be sure to make sure it conveys the message you are hoping to convey.

3. Bio

This is where it may get trickier. Your bio needs to reflect three things: who you are, what you’re interested in and your personality. Bios like “Dream, laugh, love” or “Started From the Bottom” don’t hit any of those criteria. You only have 160 characters, so you need to make it count! Lets break down those criteria:

• Who you are: This can include your school, communities or companies you belong to, and your general location. If you hold any positions you consider significant, like student council president or writer for a local newspaper, it is a good idea to mention it in your bio. Never include age, address or personal information. Remember people this is the Internet after all.

• What you’re interested in: Similar to a resumé it is always a good idea to mention keywords that you want people to think of when they see your profile. For example, if you want to work in politics, you may want to include “Love reading and discussing politics” or if you want to work at Apple, include “Apple fanboy”. You only need include 1 or 2 interests
• Your personality: After reading the last two steps, you may think I want you to sound like a robot or corporate suit. That’s not the case! It is always a good idea to have a line or two that demonstrates your humanity or personality. This can include “Lover of quinoa”, “#teamblackandblue” or even “Aspiring to be Harvey Specter”.

Some good bio examples are:

@jerryzhang222 – I try crazy stuff and sometimes it works. #TEDx speaker, former @DECAOntario pres. I started Glowstik Social Marketing. @uwaterloo engineering.

@ChrisGrouchy – @QSB Junior. Entrepreneur. Former marketing/strategy @next36. Wondering what makes things tick. I like tech, good design, coffee. National TD Scholar.

@AllenTseng92 – 4th Year undergrad studying Transportation, Logistics & Supply Chain at @UBCSauderSchool . And I watch a lot of MMA. https://blogs.ubc.ca/allentseng/

4. Clean your timeline!

The final step to setup your new Twitter profile is going through your past tweets and asking yourself “Is this tweet something I want people who aren’t my friends to see?” These may include tweets with:

• Excessive swearing
• Rude, mean or abusive tones
• Politically incorrect
• Personal information

Technically, you can do this manually, but I recommend using a tool like TweetDeleter to maximize efficiency.

And voila! Your profile is ready to go. Doesn’t it just look nicer?

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By: Katiana Shahbahrami

Edited by: Taylor Campbell

Why must it be such a difficult task for a guy to confront his own emotions? Why must he live with them not on the forefront of his mind? He feels it best that by not literally facing them, then he won’t think about them. This, of course, is not the case. Under the covers at night with no sheet and just a duvet (he never understood the point of a sheet- what’s with its inability to succeed at the task it was set forth for? It’s a complete hypocrisy to itself as its sole function is to provide warmth.) He stares up at his white stucco sky and purposely find faults in its architectural perfection to convince himself those are the reasons why he won’t be with her. Yet he knows it is not these flaws that drive him away. It is his cowardice at the prospect of being with a girl so fearlessly confident in herself that drives him away. This is a girl who relishes her imperfections and pointedly acknowledges her many perfections even when he believes he is gracing her with a compliment. She flirts with danger, yet longs for quiescence. He will never complete her for she is already whole. He merely provides luster and when he leaves she will still shine but perhaps with slightly less radiance. But she will still sparkle despite his lack of presence, which makes him falter. She does not need him and this lack thereof for him is what amplifies his ineptitude for her. He is not enough for nobody is. Nobody has been and for this reason she has remained alone but not lonely all these years. So he shies away from commitment.

She is crumbling. This pseudo strength weakens by the hours. She grows tiresome as her shoulders falter beneath the weight of her preface. She yearns to tell him who she is. She wants him to care, to attempt to understand what makes the clocks in her mind turn. She shudders with each breath she takes for he takes her breath away. No matter how many blankets she puts on herself every night she is still cold. Blankets of sadness suffocate her pursuits to drift away in peace. She doesn’t like the game. She has so much love to give. She is brimming, overfilling – overflowing with love. Her hands tremble when she picks up a glass and her knees fold like those of an infant fawn. An unrequited love is worse than having no love at all.

What is meant by what is written above? In between the plethora of words riddled with pathos I swear there lies some logical truth. You are in university right now and it is a brilliant time of discovery and passion and finding what you love about yourself and in your life and in somebody else. Do not bottle your words any longer, speak your mind and be honest with your emotions- whether it be towards yourself or somebody else. Every single one of us has a story under the surface; however, you must make an effort to understand it. The first few months have passed and as the small talk, “What’s your faculty” conversations begin to fade, new and deeper conversations will replace them. Get to know yourself and others on a deeper level and it will revolutionize your university experience.

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By: Guy Noah

Edited by: Peter Milobar

You’ve still got a week, you tell yourself.  It’s Friday night- you need a break.  You can start studying later.  Before you know it, the weekend’s gone by, you’re struggling to get through your Monday morning classes, and to top it off that Thursday test is now only a couple of sleeps away.  While this scenario may not sound familiar to you, it has undoubtedly happened to a great many of us.

When I was in first year, time management was the last thing on my list of priorities.  Unfortunately, because I was so unconcerned with having a structured schedule, I found myself in a recurrent cycle of stress, similar to my scenario. My academic life was punctuated by slow build-ups of procrastination-based stress that would result in intense cramming sessions.

You may think, that’s just a part of being a university student but the good news is it doesn’t have to be.  Time management, which sounds like a lofty, abstract concept, is really just a term for being on top of your schedule, rather than being crushed under wave after wave of deadlines and due dates.  By integrating time management as a regular part of your life, you are empowered not only to ease your stress, but also to realise that you may have more time in your day, week, or month than you thought, allowing you to do the things you want.

So this sounds well and good, but how can you put it into practice?  Well, the consensus is clear.  Long-term knowledge retention is supported better by short, infrequent engagements with material than long, last-minute cram sessions.  If you take fifteen minutes out of your day to go over what you’ve covered in class, you’re setting yourself up better than if you don’t revisit any of your lectures until the weekend before the midterm.  Not only is this a much easier and more manageable time commitment, it also will help you digest the information, and it might even help you sleep better at night knowing you’re on track.

Laying out your time in a visual medium is also beneficial.  Printing out a calendar, picking up an agenda that you visit every morning or night, or even having a to-do list on your phone, a whiteboard, even sticky notes on your wall – these are all effective strategies for you to remind yourself of the tasks you need to complete and when you need to have them completed.

Set aside reflection time.  At the end of the day, take a couple minutes to sit down and ask, have I done everything I wanted to get done today?  And if not, how can I integrate that into my schedule moving forward so that I take it in stride, rather than letting it drag me down?

University life is hectic.  Finding a way to navigate it that works best for you is important.  Don’t neglect your time: in many ways, it’s all we have!

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Article by Reed Eaglesham

Edited by Peter Milobar

This year has been an absolutely superb year for movies, as increasingly each year seems to be. With so many blockbusters coming at us it’s easy to miss some of the diamonds hidden in the rough. I started thinking about this when I stumbled along the movie “Bridge of Spies”. You probably haven’t heard of it, and if you have, you probably thought it wasn’t worth going to. Overshadowed by October’s lead, ‘The Martian’ (which I have heard is a fantastic film as well) it is a movie about a lawyer during the Cold War who is asked to facilitate a prisoner trade with the Soviet Union. If that story doesn’t interest you, that’s fine.

It’s really not tho

However, who is involved in the project, should. The movie is directed by the household name, Steven Spielberg…. Just to be clear- that’s DIRECTED, not PRODUCED. Spielberg has been in the game so long, that if he walks on a set, he’ll get credit for the movie, even though he’s produced about a million things. Paired with Steven, is the ever- wonderful Tom Hanks and the screen play is written by the Coen Brothers. If you’re not into film, this might not mean much, if you are… this is a once in a lifetime partnership of arguably the best director, actor, and writer pairs in the industry at present; that is VERY exciting! The reason why I bring this up is to highlight that in years dominated by blockbusters, great movies can often be over shadowed. I hope that I’ll be able to point you in the direction of a couple of movies I’ve been dying to see coming up in November and December.

Both of the upcoming months are filled with the potential to destroy childhoods: with ‘The Peanuts Movie’ and of course ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ as well as movie and book franchises: James Bond’s ‘Spectre’ and the final installment of the Hunger Games book series. Thankfully critics are already raving about Spectre, but the rest… only the future will tell. If you want to see some movies that aren’t surrounded in hype and that will also promise not to destroy childhood memories, then here are some that I’d recommend.

The Hateful Eight: This is Quentin Tarantino’s eighth movie that he believes will become ‘iconic’, for most people this would sound a little cocky to say the least. But Quentin has already made seven other iconic movies, from Pulp Fiction to Reservoir Dogs so I’d say he’s granted a little bragging room. If you’re not familiar with Quentin’s work be prepared for a LOT of blood, and a LOT of dialogue, if that’s not your style stay away. This movie is supposedly is about a group of fairly dangerous men who end up getting stuck in a snowed in cabin, it will be bound to have gorgeous cinematography, a beautiful script, and WAY more blood that can ever be in a human body.

A bit too bloody for this editor’s taste but it does look good

The Revenant: A revenge story following the lead characters played by Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio as they survive through an array of dangers and the environment. The latter was definitely true, since during filming actors got hypothermia and many experienced horrendous conditions while filming in the mountains of Alberta.  The film is also directed by the Oscar winning (so not Leo) director Alejandro González Iñárritu who won best picture last year for ‘Birdman’. Suffice to say, I am more than pumped to see this movie.

Looks to be a casual Canadian-filmed movie…. *sarcasm

Macbeth: Yes, they are making another but never have I been this excited for English literature and film. Played by Michael Fassbender, this version follows less of a power hungry wife (Marion Cotillard), and more a pair of parents who have lost their child and use power to try to fill the void. With the incredible acting talent of Fassbender and Cotillard mixed in with incredible cinematography, this is an absolute must see.

Seems intense…

So save up some money and hit the theatres this winter Totem!!

Actually though..

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By: Liz Coady

Edited by: Peter Milobar

“Everybody gets the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  We make time for what we truly want”

                              -Unknown

                Your first semester of university is more than halfway done and it has probably been quite a learning experience in more ways than one.  In my first year, I learned a lot of things in school and I learned a lot about myself.  I learned that I was absolutely terrible at managing my time.  As a result, I had a very difficult time adjusting to university life and balancing academics, friends, and extra-curricular activities.  When second semester came around, I changed my habits, worked managing my time better, and improved my ability to balance each aspect of my life.  So here are my top 5 tips for managing your time.

1. Write it down

Keep track of all the tasks, assignments and events that you need to do.  Whether it is an agenda, a notebook or a loose sheet of paper, write down what you need to do. It’s a great way to get a visual for how much or how little there is to be done and a great way to remember everything.

Be a smart cookie like Studious Sally here and write it down

2. Plan it out

Now that you can see what you need to do, it’s time to organize when you will do it.  A calendar comes in really handy for this.  To get a general overview, write down the due dates and the percentage worth of each assignment.  This will allow you to prioritize each assignment and determine how much time to dedicate to each assignment.  For example, if you see that you have two exams in the same week and you see that one exam is only worth 20% of your mark while the other exam is worth 40% of your mark, dedicate more time to studying for the second exam

Planning Pete seems to have his game on

3. Prevent Procrastination

Procrastination happens so easily, especially nowadays with access to the internet and other distractions right at our fingertips.  An effective method to prevent procrastination is to set goals each day of what you would like to get done and when you would like them done by. For instance, you have to do Webworks for math, write a proposal for English, finish the Mastering physics problem set and quickly do the assignment for French class- Here is how I would plan it out.

4 pm – 3 questions in Webworks

6 pm – last few questions in Mastering Physics

7 pm — finish eating dinner

9 pm – Written up rough draft of English proposal

11 pm – French assignment

12am – Bed

Make sure that you leave some buffer time in between each activity in case you take a little longer than expected.  It’s important also to stick to the plan! When the time comes to move onto a new task, move on.   Make time the next day to allow yourself to finish up unfinished work.

4. Put similar things together

When scheduling the tasks you need to do, put similar tasks together. Let’s say it’s a Saturday and you need to do grocery shopping, talk with your group about your project, do your laundry, call home and pre-read for the upcoming week.   When planning, put all the chores together and all the homework together so that your schedule will look like this:

1. Put laundry in the machine
2. Go catch the bus to the grocery store
3. Call home while on the bus
4. Shop for groceries
5. Put laundry in the dryer, put away groceries while laundry is in the drier
6. Eat lunch
7. Meet up with group to discuss project
8. Pre-read

5. Treat yourself

Make sure you make time to treat yourself! You just did a lot of productive work and deserve a treat.  A treat can be anything from time to relax with your friends or buying yourself a small treat or even allowing yourself to watch an episode of your favourite TV show on Netflix.  Treat yourself so you don’t burn out and are able to keep going.  You can also use the treats as motivation to get through your day or your week.

Maybe don’t go that far though….

Have an awesome day Totem!!

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By: Alberto Alcaraz 

Edited by Peter Milobar

“September is always a blast. October and November are a bit harder; it starts raining, routine sinks in, midterms…  but then you realize that, despite everything, UBC is a pretty cool place to be in and that you’d rather be here than somewhere else.”

That’s perhaps the best piece of advice I got in my first semester. It was around this time last year. I was in IKB looking for a place to study, an almost impossible task as some of you may know, when I stumbled into this guy who went to the same high school I did. After a few seconds of chit chat he asked a question you’re all too familiar with:

– “How are you liking UBC?”

– “It’s good” I replied in a not-so-convinced tone. He then proceeded to say the quote at the beginning of this article. I can see it being printed on a poster; cheesy nature background and all.

This image brought itself in to the article

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I wasn’t enjoying my time here. It was that the experience wasn’t anywhere near to what I expected before coming here. I feel that I had built this perfect image of what I wanted UBC to be; projected everything that my high school self desired. It was November, and I had not achieved most of the things I wanted to achieve by that time. What I’m saying is, there will be times throughout the year where you feel that things aren’t going your way. I know that happened to me. More than once I’ve asked if #iamubc or not. The important thing to realize is that you’re not the only one who feels this way, that you can count on people to help you (be your friends, profs, RA’s, family, etc…), and that the November blues (I had no idea that was the title of a YA novel until now) will pass.

Book… or fact of life??

November has come once again, and with it a seemingly endless flow of deadlines, midterms, parties, and whatnot. November has come… yet, as that one pop song goes, there’s no place I’d rather be.

No place he’d rather be

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Written by: Mary Koehle

Edited by: Peter Milobar

Been there, SpongeBob

Late October-Early November: regularly deemed the student-survival period, breakdown time, or burnout season. This is a time of the year when students across all universities start to wonder why they subjected themselves to this absurdity and consider whether dropping out and becoming a surf-instructor in Hawaii is a feasible option for them. With the seemingly endless midterms, projects, assignments, and studying, coupled with less-than-beautiful weather (thanks Raincouver) it’s fair to say that a lot of students’ spirits (as well our hair) have been dampened. Thus, here are some tips to surviving and thriving throughout a stressful time of the year:

• Take comfort in the fact that most people feel very similarly to you. It tends to seem as though you’re alone in feeling the way that you do (whether that be anxious, frazzled, disheartened etc.) and that everyone else has their business in order, but that is very rarely, I would go so far as to say never, the case.

Real talk: Deep down, everyone is looking like this

• Have time for yourself. Whether that is taking an hour to go exercise, watching an episode of Netflix, or having a dance party in your room by yourself, me-time is important! No one can study constantly for every waking hour (even though it seems like that person in your class that gets 95% on every midterm must.

Dance like no one’s watching

• Retain some human contact. As an introvert, I understand that this one is difficult for some people, but socializing usually helps to alleviate some of those common burnout feelings. Taking twenty minutes to go have coffee with your best friend may provide the motivation that was necessary for you to finish that paper you would have spent three hours procrastinating over. At the very least, taking to someone else generally works to establish the fact that other people are feeling the same way that you are (i.e. refer to #1).

#Deep and true

• It will be over sooner than you think! One month, four weeks, twenty-eight days, 672 hours, however you want to think about it, this craziness does have an end and it is in sight. Hang in there, you’re first semester at UBC is almost complete.

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By: Nicholas Gagnon

Edited by: Peter Milobar

Want to lose weight? Every blog, book, magazine, trainer, dietician will give you their own method on how to lose weight (i.e. eat less, exercise more, consume less high-calorie foods, avoid carbohydrates). But in the end, it all comes down to how many calories in you consume versus how many calories of work you put out, right? Not exactly. Weight gain is just as heavily based on genetic inheritance as it is on environmental effects and in order to understand this, we have to go down to the basics.

The editor’s way of dieting

            There are two kinds of motives that drive our eating behaviour: hunger and satiety (feeling full).  When your stomach feels deprived, it secretes Ghrelin, which tells your body its hungry.  When your stomach feels full, it will secrete a number of things (CCK, Insulin and Leptin) to digest the food and tell your body to stop eating. However, there are numerous other chemicals and brain regions that influence these different signals causing your body to either keep eating or to put that donut down.  Any slight problems in any of these pathways or brain regions can leave the individual with unnatural eating behaviours.

Science Rules!!

•  Damage in your Peraventricular Nucleus: causes increased meal size
• Damage in your Ventromedial Nucleus: causes increased meal frequency
•  Those with FTO gene have a 2/3 chance of becoming obese.
•  Prader-Willis syndrome: produce higher than normal Ghrelin levels

What all these complicated terminologies mean is that obesity isn’t all that black and white. In addition, someone’s prenatal environment can highly influence your chance of becoming obese. Studies show that if a mother consumes a high-fat diet during pregnancy, the child will have a much higher chance of becoming obese due to Insulin and other chemical levels in the infant.

As you can see, environmental factors are not only culprit in the obesity epidemic. Genetics play a significant role in controlling someone’s metabolic rates and as a result, influencing their weight. Nonetheless, poor dieting and consumption of high calorie foods are still the largest problem in today’s society and need to be drastically changed if we want to see any change in our society’s health. There are no shortcuts for proper dieting and exercise to lose weight, but just remember that during a zombie apocalypse, you don’t have to be the fastest runner to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you.

Stay fit…. cause ya never know

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By: Jarrett Carter

Edited by Peter Milobar

Midterms are something that you need to prepare for as soon as possible. Before you know it the wrath of midterms can rain down on you and all of a sudden you won’t be able to handle the pressure anymore, so you binge eat. Ice cream, chips, chocolate, whatever it is that fills that void, a lot can fill the void, and it can be a big void. Here’s how to keep that from happening.

The regret is SO real, little guy

Step 1.

Prepare as soon as possible- you can never be fully prepared for a midterm. Especially if it’s one of Gateman’s; actually in his case, you can never be even remotely prepared. In most cases, as soon as possible it would mean that you have been keeping up with the course load since the beginning, but we all know that’s not true. Just give yourself as much time as you can.

So true

Step 2.

Load up on pencils and pens. Writing utensils are a must as you will be vigorously taking notes. On that thought, a sore wrist is a very real possibility after all of that hard work. So you might want to consider hitting up shoppers for a wrist brace and throw that into your survival kit for extreme measures.

Step 3.

Make sure you have a support system. You cannot battle midterms all by yourself. Though you actually meet the midterm face to face by yourself, that does not mean that you have to prepare alone. Having someone to keep you on track during your studies is crucial. Plus, it’s nice to have people around after your midterm if things haven’t gone as planned.

With the right friends, studying will be as happy as the people in this photo

Step 4.

Get expert advice. You have access to a lot of people who have been through good and bad experiences with midterms. Don’t be afraid to ask them for help! I asked a few people to describe in three words how to survive midterms, here’s what they said: Kirsten, “Chocolate. Sleep. TV Shows.” Emma, “Caffeine. Friends. Treat.” Aneel, “Focus. Determination. Positivity.” And Trevor, “Eat. Sleep. Study.”

The point is: Everyone has a different way of surviving midterms, find what works for you and stick to it! Some of these steps may be a good place to start. Oh, and Good Luck!

When you pass

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Written by: Noelle Dalin

Edited by: Peter Milobar

It is October and it may have already be over a month since you have seen your partner. One or both of you have moved away for university and the distance might be starting to get to you. In addition, school stress has been ramping up with midterms and there are no cuddles within sight. Send your partner some love and care with a fabulous care package to make them feel like you are not so far away.

Step 1: Find out your partner’s address and your own address. Your mailbox number/address is on your Welcome Package that you got on Move-In.

Step 2: Get a cardboard box.  You can buy one from Staples in the University Village or see if anyone in your community has a spare shoe box.

Step 3: Go to Shoppers, the bookstore or even Save-on-Foods and get small gifts to fill the care package. Consider inexpensive but thoughtful items that fall under the following categories:

1. Needed items. Ex) Warm socks, if it’s cold where they are, or tissues if they keep telling you about their running nose.
2. Ex) Pictures of where you are or a UBC keychain.
3. Seriously food. Who doesn’t love free food? Ex) Snacks for studying, goodies that they like or something that you have baked especially for them (as long as shipping time is no longer than a couple days and the item isn’t extremely perishable/squishable).
4. A letter or hand-written note. It is just nice to tell them how much that they are missed or how excited you are to see them next.
5. Attach a collage of pictures of you two together to bring back memories. Find these pictures on social media, on your computer or even just old pictures on your phone.
6. Seasonal Decorations. Ex) Stickers or items that they can use to jazz up their room, if they also live in residence.
7. Cute jokes, pick-up lines or paper captions that explain why you packed an item. The cornier, the better! Ex) Item: Artic Rush Tictacs. Message: I’ve got an Artic Rush Crush on you.
8. Anything hand crafted. It might serve to be a good de-stressor to knit, carve or draw something for them.

Step 4: Decorate the box. Inside, outside or both! Attach pictures, hearts, messages, pet names, inside jokes or whatever else makes you happy!

My sample care package

Step 5: Write both of your addresses on the box and use packing tape to seal all edges.

Step 6: Send at the Post Office and notify the recipient that a package should be arriving at an approximate date, so that they may wait in anticipation. What a great thing to look forward to after a stressful week!

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