communitystudy - Tumblr blog

[communitystudy]

Hey. (My academic life post-studyblr)

Been a while... 6 years, to be precise? Accidentally logged into this trying to find my main in morbid curiosity after the Twittering (TM).

For the purpose of wrapping this blog up, I'll do a quick summary of my academic life post-studyblr:

Finished my associate degree in liberal arts in December 2017

From what I can remember (it's been a while!), I had a handful of credits left to get an AA in design that would be able to transfer more credits. So I took those last few classes and worked on my portfolio in the meantime

I also got a paid internship in design/marketing around this time

Portfolio was just OK. Nothing special, absolutely not as good as the ones you see on Youtube lol

Accepted to state college, SVA, MICA, and another one I can't even remember anymore, waitlisted to Pratt, rejected from RISD

Went to MICA because it was the cheapest with merit

Had major "small pond syndrome" going from hot shit at local community college to nobody at MICA, cried a lot lol

Eventually got friends and got more comfortable. I got to have conversations with folks from Nike, the NYT, etc. Had a cool idea for thesis that my advisor thought could extend to exploration as an MFA degree (never going to grad school but nice thought!)

Left for senior year spring break in March 2020 and never came back. Thesis never happened

I got the maximum number of transfer credits. The community college classes were designed to be transferrable unlike some other colleges! I completed my junior/senior years on time.

My mom got sick and died of cancer around the time of my graduation. I know this is kinda weird to throw in here, but feels weird to not mention it as it was the biggest most impactful event in the last 6 years for me

Rejoined company I did my internship with. Company grew from like 40 people to (as of two years later) 600 people. New name, I rebranded everything and continue to work there

Based on my past experience, I would continue to recommend community college 100%. I work with many people who entered the workforce with AAs and have made a great careers for themselves. I got the same BA as my peers but did not graduate with any student loan debt.

I also got to spend an extra two years at home with my mom that I did not realize would be some of the last years of her life... obviously a hindsight benefit and not something that can be considered in your college decision without a crystal ball, but our relationship really mellowed out from my tumultuous teen years during that time and I'm grateful I had it.

Cool. Kinda doubt anyone will see this, but thanks if you did :)

[communitystudy]

another semester... back at it again 📚

[communitystudy]

classes start tomorrow and i dont have shit

[communitystudy]

i have nothing 2 say except that myprogramminglab is the devil itself and i’ve given up. i just copy + paste the “correct” answer and all my joy comes solely from pokemon go now. godspeed

[communitystudy]

Do you have anymore notes you could post? I'm looking for AP Physics and AP Lit notes, although AP Euro and anything on German.

aaah nope. i didn’t take ¾ subjects mentioned and never did... any studying for lit haha. fairly certain all my other notes are in some landfill by now, anyway.

what i’ve always found helpful is to ask people you know IRL — it’s great to hang around in the last few days of classes and ask people who are now 100% DONE but still probably have the materials. the entire reason i uploaded those stat notes is because a guy i knew asked me for them, and i figured why not just upload them online, too?

eta: as i wrote this, i assumed you had already checked out @noteblr and the noteblr tag, but if not: great place to start!

[communitystudy]

“I can’t remember EVER giving a final essay 100%, but this is absolutely magnificent…  Kebra Negast is one of the very last huge epic poems of the pre-modern world, and you perfectly capture its writer’s motivations and the epic’s historical and continuing significance. Your sources are quite helpful, and you also highlight the writerly choices made to present Solomon as flawed and yet worthy of siring the Ethiopic line. Over the summer I am going to look for a venue for you to publish this.”

[communitystudy]

also, ftr, my ap scores were:

ap u.s history - 4

ap world history - 4

ap english lit - 5

ap bio - 4

ap stat - 3

ap u.s gov - 4

ap comp gov - 5

altogether, i earned 28 credits through my ap credit. it’s great, my dudes

[communitystudy]

AYYY I FOUND UR AP STAT NOTES AND HONESTLY BLESS UR SOUL ILY ALSO DID U GET A 5 ON THE AP STATS EXAM!!!?? srry it's a little personal haha...

ty! i’m glad people have found them useful!

i did not get a 5 — i got a 3. to be quite honest, i’m still happy with that score. i’ve had difficulties with math since... forever, and that class was the first time i was ever in a math class that was not for “low achieving” students. i struggled a lot (and i mean a LOT) with it, but i still managed to pass :)

[communitystudy]

Debunking the Triangle Myth

It’s very hard to find ways to keep up with all your college work and still keep a balanced life. Many people say that when you get into college, you need to choose from two vertices of the first triangle while sacrificing the third one. Well, I need to tell you that that’s completely not true!

If you plan and organize your life, you will be able to manage your sleep schedule, your studying sessions and your night-outs without sacrificing one of them.

The first thing you need to do is being realistic. Instead of sleeping 9 hours a day, perhaps you will need to cut back to seven hours a day, which will probably provide enough energy throughout the day without letting your feel the burnout. On the other hand, you need to ration the time you spend with your friends and family. The best way to do so is scheduling a fixed schedule to be with them and dedicate yourself 100% during that time. It’s not how much time you have available that matters. What matters is what you do with the time you have available. Cutting back on fundamental aspects of your life will really hurt your grades – and if it doesn’t hurt your grades right away, it will hurt your body and state of mind sooner than you think. Sleepless nights have a mark on your body. On the other hand, depriving yourself of time spent with your loved ones can hurt and destroy relationships and in the end of the day, you’ll find out that those grades aren’t as worth as much as that.

Another thing I recommend is finding some sort of physical activity that helps you manage energy levels. Even running 10 minutes a day will do wonders for your physical and mental health, letting you cope with high stress levels and the feeling of burnout. Try to unplug from your college activities, listen to some music and concentrate on your body rather than on your brain.

You also need to prioritize. Choosing tons of classes just to feel productive is a waste of time. Having a heavily crowded schedule just for the sake of it will result in lower grades and a lower ability to focus on those classes. Pick classes that you think you can personally enjoy but can also help you on your chosen career path. Try to keep both of those aspects in mind when you’re picking subjects for the next semester, or else risking signing up for classes that are just filling you with stress and won’t even matter when you get your diploma.

Find a way to get help. You are not alone in this path and many of your classmates are probably feeling the same way. Try to get together and find a way to share some tasks or somehow trade notes and materials to help each other. If you can attend a lecture for any reason, don’t hesitate to ask for the class notes and assignments. If one of your classmates skips a lecture because they are sick, don’t hold back and hand them those notes. Finding a reading group is great to divide huge books into manageable chunks and distribute them between the members, so you have less reading to do and are able to summarize your part in a better way and then share your summary with your colleagues.

Schedule some “me-time”. Don’t look at your personal space as a failure towards your productivity goals. Try to incorporate at least half-an-hour with yourself in your busy schedule, and stick to it religiously. I always read a novel from 10 p.m to 10.30. Even if I reach that hour without finishing all the tasks for college that I had set out for myself to accomplish, I will just close my laptop, put away my notes and I will just allow myself to be relaxed for that half an hour.

[communitystudy]

Anonymous asked: Could you possibly make a list of how to avoid getting burnt out throughout the school year? Last year I was in the top eight percent for GPA as a freshman, but I was so burnt out it’s a miracle I made it through the year. Now I am a sophomore with a heavier classload, and a job plus extracurriculars. Any advice?

1. Set aside one day a week dedicated to relaxing

In college it’s rather difficult to have a day when you don’t have ANY homework, but choose a day each week that you dedicate to yourself. Only do homework that absolutely needs to get done that day, then treat yourself to some time for your hobbies. Watch Netflix for hours, draw, go see a movie. A day dedicated to relaxing and staying away from academic work will really refresh you and get you ready to get back to work!

2. Alternate between academic work and non academic work during study sessions

If you have a bunch of assignments to do, don’t just try to get them all done in a row without any kind of breaks. You’ll get tired and this will make your work worse and take longer. After finishing one assignment, do something that isn’t related to school. Clean your room a little, take out the trash, make a snack- just do something that isn’t schoolwork. This will break the monotony of studying for hours on end and you’ll look forward to the short breaks in between assignments. 

3. Remember your goals

If you’re having trouble getting an assignment done and you find yourself thinking “I don’t really need to do this” remember what your goals are. Maybe you want a 3.0 at the end of the semester or you really want an A in that class. It’s easy to lose track of your goals, but imagine how good it will feel to have an A at the end of the semester. 

4. Take it one day at a time

It’s incredibly easy to look ahead in your calendar and get stressed out about future essays and projects. That kind of stress can cause you to just want to clock out and sleep for the rest of the semester. I recommend taking the semester one day at a time. Just focus on what you’re doing now. Plan out the week, not the whole semester. Before you know it, it will be finals week and you’ll have made it!

5. Become a part of a group that cares about school

This sounds stupid, but the studyblr community on tumblr is really inspiring and genuinely makes me want to do well in school. Everyone is really supportive and always posts fun pictures of what they’re working on and being a part of a community like that really makes you want to achieve and learn. 

[communitystudy]

today i got nominated “best dressed” and “most likely to fall asleep in the student lounge” for our silly student awards

[communitystudy]

second semester ✌

[communitystudy]

I've recently gotten back a literature essay that I was sure I was going to do really well on, but my mark fell way short of that expectation. I've yet to go through my professor's notes but I trust her judgement because I've worked closely with her all semester to refine my critical analysis skills. If you have experience with something like this, how did you move forward from it and if not, what would be best for me to do? Essays like this really impact my GPA and I want to do well on them :(

First, definitely go through her notes on your essay! I find I’m a really horrible judge of my own work – when I think it’s good, it’s a bit below the mark; when I think it’s dreadful, it’s apparently not. But I’ve found that, no matter how much it hurts (and believe me – I know the sting of looking at constructive criticism very very closely, wishing you could just look away), you’ll benefit immeasurably from being able to apply corrections. My director of studies has said that aside from any other skill or knowledge I have or present, what’s most encouraging is that if a deficiency in my work is pointed out to me, it will be fixed the next time. No exception whatsoever. It definitely requires diligence though.

The next thing you might consider looking into is whether your professor has office hours (or if not, emailing and seeing if you can meet them outside of, or after, class). I know it can be extremely nerve-wracking to turn up to these for the first time – maybe go with a written set of questions in hand about exactly how you can do better, or specific questions about the content of a course topic, or perhaps discussing in further depth one of your arguments/trains of thought in an essay.

Hope this helps a bit x

[communitystudy]

[communitystudy]

i have an insane amount of schoolwork to do in the next 2 weeks, like i couldn't even finish this weeks stuff so it's really piling up even though i'm giving my best. how do you deal with those situations? i feel like i'm gonna have a burn out because it's been like this for months and i feel like i'm going to break and drown in this pile of tests and projects and essays

Hey!

Organisation Masterpost

Time Management

How to Study More Efficiently

How to Get Things Done

Managing a Busy Schedule

Productivity Masterpost