Post-Secondary Ramblings

I don’t know about you, but I really hate evening midterms. I know it’s all about having it standardized and all, but there are so many little things that make it not worth it.

1. It sucks when your classes end at 12 and you have to stay at school for 7 hours just to write a midterm. It sucks even more when you don’t have class that day and the midterm is on a Friday night. I had that happen to me once. It wasted my long weekend. It was a very sunny Friday too.

2. Staying late means I have to pack a dinner in addition to a lunch. I personally like to pack my own food because I don’t really like the food served on campus, and thus having to bring that extra meal in addition to my textbooks and possibly my laptop makes my backpack look like it’s going to explode. Lugging it around the whole day is another matter.

3. Commuting is a bother. I live about an hour commute from UBC, so when I have a midterm that ends at night, busing really sucks since there are very limited buses. It sucks even more because everyone ends around the same time and make it to the bus loop around the same time. The result? Overcrowded buses.

4. Building up on that, people are prone to talk about the exam you just wrote. I don’t know about you, but when my midterm is over, I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to know what I got wrong. Just let me get home first.

Just my little rant about why I prefer in-class exams more.

I’m dreading the thought of having to wake up early tomorrow and go to school. One week of Reading Break was definitely not enough for me. How did I spend my Reading Break? As the title suggests, I spent it on catching up on work and taking a much needed break.

I really did take full advantage of this break. Coincidentally, Saturday was the Olympic Anniversary celebration, and thus I spent the day (and night) in Downtown/Yaletown. The next few days were rather fuzzy. I do remember spending at least 2 full days watching TV shows/movies on my laptop though. Another day was spent catching up with my high school friends during a lunch outing. Last but not least, I spent not just one, but two days up on the mountains snowboarding. Snow conditions were amazing and I look forward to another day up there.

Now that I think about it, the numbers don’t really add up as I do remember spending a lot of time studying. Maybe I didn’t do as much “reading” as I thought I did. I did however do 2 weeks worth of suggested problems for math and a bunch of chemistry practice problems. Of course, Starbucks having their Tazo Tea Time promotion definitely helped me.

And to end off my break, well, I’m going to be spending my afternoon/evening/night reading for pleasure (:

I noticed that there is a shortage of posts recently, and that’s understandable. It’s midterm season yay! A friend once told me that the time to take a break is when you don’t have time for it. I thought it was really true, and it has stuck with me ever since. Here I am, taking a break from studying for my Chem121 midterm in approximately 3 hours to write up this blog entry. I guess the most logical thing for me to talk about right now would be study tips, so here are a few that I have discovered!

Things that I found really useful while studying:

1. Make a cheat sheet for every exam whether you’re allowed to use it or not. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one out there who isn’t caught up with readings. What I found was that making the cheat sheet forced me to actually go through the material, or at least skim it. It was really good review and I picked out a lot of facts that I missed, which coincidentally happened to be on the midterm.

2. If you’re not good at focusing, head into a library where everyone else is studying. Chances are, when you see other people around you working hard, you’d start working hard too. If you like to study in a group, know which friends you will be productive with and resist the temptation to meet up with those who distract you. Those who know me will know that I am very easily distracted.  However, just by merely sitting in the Bookstacks and noticing that everyone was busy studying, I felt compelled to study too, and ended up studying for 5 hours at times.

3. Just because you’re not a Sauder student doesn’t mean you can’t study in their building. One of my favourite places to study is ironically the BCom lounge at the back of the Henry Angus. In fact, I’m actually sitting there right now. Those who like to work with laptops and find trouble finding an outlet need to worry no more! There are plugs galore in the lounge and I’ve always been able to find a seat here. Sure, I had a few weird looks when I took out my Science notes, but that’s about it. Sauder students are paying $500 each for this building, you can experience it for free.

And finally,

4. Take time to get out and have fun! Yes, I have two midterms this week and homework and other stuff in my life, but that didn’t stop me from playing Ultimate and attending not one, but two Thanksgiving dinners. Chances are, if you’re just going to do nothing but study, you’re going to burn out, and even if you aren’t, your studying won’t be as efficient. Take that much needed break and come back to your studying feeling all refreshed. You’ll thank yourself for it.

Good luck with midterms everyone!

T-12 days.

Less than two weeks until school starts. I’m usually not too excited about back to school. After all, it usually means all the time that I spend having fun would be replaced by homework and other school related things. This time around, I’m super pumped and hoping that the next 12 days will past by quicker.

I’ve heard so much about university life during my years as a high school student. I can’t exactly say I have high expectations of how my next four years will turn out, but I’m definitely looking forward to it. I’m sure that it will be filled with pleasant surprises waiting for me at every corner.

I guess that’s all that I have to say at the moment. I’ll be back to post about my good and not-so-good experiences throughout my stay at UBC.