First-Gen Psych Major

Hello! I'm a first-generation freshman at the University of Utah. Follow here for tips on how to balance work and school, manage your finances, follow my story, and just general blog-like things! *disclamer* I am not a proffesional in any way...yet. 

[happilyconfusedpsychmajor]

Does anyone else just feel angry?

Like, at everything?

[happilyconfusedpsychmajor]

I have a website now!

If you want more recent content, go check it out at www.firstgenpsychmajor.org. Thanks!

[marias-studyblr]

study less study smart

I decided to share my notes taken from this amazing 1 hour Youtube lecture by Marty Lobdell. i really liked him and his tips, i think they are super effective and cover a lot of situations! i highly recommend it!!!!! wow

but here are the tips and examples Marty mentions, so if you don’t have the time to go through the full hour, you can just scroll down. hope this helps somebody!

Break your study time in chunks with breaks

most students lose focus at 25 minutes

it’s a mistake to keep going once you do, since you won’t actually learn anything and you’ll hate every minute of it

so when you start losing focus take a 5 minute break

do something nice like talking to someone or listening to music

it’s something you practice so with time you’ll be able to work for more time without losing focus

in the end of the study session have a big reward you look forward to

Create a study area

environment highly affects the way you act. Bedrooms are for sleeping, kitchens for eating: you’ll feel sleepy in your bedroom and hungry in the kitchen. So if you have a study area, it’ll be easier to start studying and staying focused.

study in a specific room like an office or school library if you can

if you have to study in your bedroom use a specific object you only use for studying: a lamp/desk. Make it a no-distraction, away from your bed, blank walls area.

 The more active the learning, the better

80% active learning 20% passive

ask yourself: is it a concept or a fact?

learning a concept: understand/grasp/know it

put it into your own words

really think about the meaning of it

relate it with something you already know

teach somebody else. Recapitulate what you’ve learned. Talk out loud even if you don’t have anyone to teach - talk alone. Or at anyone that listens.

learning a fact: memorize it

use mnemonics

Acronyms (e.g. colours of the rainbow RoyGBiv – red orange yellow green blue indigo violet)

 Coined sayings - anything popular or sayings you’ve heard since you were a child.

Interacting images – work even better if they’re weird. Creative associations make you never forget specific details. (e.g. 1 gram of fat has 9 calories: picture a fat cat – each cat has 9 lives)

any time 2 things are highly similar but not the same you will get maximal interference!! USE mnemonics!! (e.g. afferent vs efferent neurons: SAME - Sensory Afferent Motor Efferent)

Be a part of  study groups

others can help you in ways you never thought before

Recognizing VS remembering

never confuse the two

while reviewing a chapter you may recognize concepts but not actually know them

and when you get to the test you won’t be able to remember any of it

so quiz yourself without looking at it

or stop in a page of your notes/textbook and ask yourself what is the concept immediately after and before it

Get your REM Sleep 

get ~8 hours so you don’t undo your studying

this is how your brain stores permanent memories

without it you’re ability to remember seriously decreases

most people don’t even begin to take the advice but it’s simple: sleep better. Do better.

There’s 162 hours in a week. There is time.

reflect on what you are doing with your time and what activities you have to prioritize to succed as a student

Taking notes is vital.

right after the class take 5 minutes to expand everything you’ve jotted down, give it depth.

NOT hours later. You won’t remember half the things you wrote down.

Ask your questions to class mates and teachers.

teachers want you to succeed and it’s more than ok to ask your question in the teacher’s office or in the next class

How to use a textbook: SQ3R technique

Survey Question Read Recite Review

Survey: skim through the entire chapter in a couple of minutes.

Raise questions: e.g. what is osmosis? What is this graphic about? What is a prototype?

it causes you to look for answers and you’ll find the information better once you actually study it after. If you intend to find something you learn it better.

Start studying for tests early.

don’t undo yourself. You should only be reviewing the days before the test. don’t leave it till the last minute!

(don’t just scroll through this!!!! really think about these methods and how you can actually implement them so you can benefit from them!!! these actually work but only if you put them into practice boo good luck!)

[arabwife]

can’t wait to become everything that i want to be and what people said i couldn’t be

[chrissongzzz]

[missmentelle]

All the Ways Your Rich Friends Will Not “Get It”

I’m a kid from a blue-collar, working-class background, doing my master’s degree at an Ivy League school. I’m incredibly grateful to be here, and I fully understand that this is an opportunity most people of my upbringing never get to have. Not everyone here is from a rich background - there are other working-class kids, getting by on loans, scholarships and part-time jobs. But for the most part, the people around me grew up very differently than I did, and although I love my friends, there are things about my life and my college experience that they’re just never going to get. Things like:

Money can buy good grades. My wealthier friends aren’t slipping the TAs a wink and a $100 bill on their way out of the midterm, but being wealthier does make it easier to earn better grades. I have to work a part-time job in order to afford my rent, while my rich friends are abstaining from work so they can focus on school. That’s 20 hours per week that they can spend on school, while I’m at my job. Our school is in a neighborhood in Manhattan that I can’t afford to live in - I’m spending at least ten hours per week commuting, while they live steps from campus. That’s all extra time that they can spend studying, or just relaxing and getting the sleep they need to be mentally alert. Many of my friends pay to have a laundry service pick up their dirty laundry and bring it back clean and folded (which is common in NYC). I can’t afford this, so instead I spend hours lugging laundry up and down five flights of stairs, because I can’t afford to live in a building with an elevator. I cook and prepare my own meals, they eat mostly takeout. And so on, and so forth. My life is filled with hours of work, chores and annoyances that they don’t have to deal with, and all of it cuts into my time. We may be taking the same classes and doing assignments that are the same difficulty, but I’m going in with a 40-hour per week handicap that they can afford not to have. 

“Follow your dreams” is a risk some of us can’t afford to take. My old roommate spent long hours agonizing over whether she wanted to major in art history or creative writing. For me, that would be like asking if I preferred a pet dragon or a unicorn. My biggest passion in life is fiction writing, but I can’t justify spending tens of thousands of dollars to study it - I’m paying for my education by myself, and I had to choose a field that would let me make enough money to pay back my student loans and afford my own rent after graduating. My friends can focus on the things that really interest them, without worrying about future career prospects. A lot of them are using their college years to “find themselves” and plan to take some time off to travel the world or work on their art after graduating. Many of them have parents with connections in hard-to-access industries like fashion, publishing, television, or the art world. They can take unpaid internships and go for their shot at a one-in-a-million dream job - if it doesn’t work out, they can move on to something else, no harm done. If I put tens of thousands of dollars into being an author and it doesn’t pan out for me right away, I’m in deep shit. I’m happy for people who are able to follow their true passions, and I wish more people were able to do so without fear, but I’m tired of the pitying looks and condescending lectures I get when I tell my friends why I’m not in school for my greatest passion. I didn’t make that decision because I’m boring, or because I don’t believe in myself hard enough - I made that decision because my parents co-signed on all my student loans, and they could lose their house if I can’t find a job. 

Your “funny mishap” is my “life-changing disaster”. My friends talk about the time that they accidentally got drunk and spent all their rent money at a strip club, or the time that they slept through their final and had to re-take a class. For them, these are funny stories. For me, this would be a life-defining catastrophe that could change the course of my 20s and beyond. If I blow all my rent money, I can’t call my parents to beg for more - I could get evicted, or ruin my credit score. Best-case scenario, I’d probably have to take on so many extra hours at work that I could barely finish my schoolwork. If I sleep through a final and fail a class, I will lose my scholarship and be unable to complete my degree. To my friends, I come across as uptight and overcautious, but I don’t have a choice. The same mistake carries much greater consequences for me than it does for them, and they have a hard time understanding that. I wish that I could be carefree about money, and laugh about accidentally getting drunk and spending $500 on Amazon, but I can’t. It can be hard to tell the difference between “oh shit, this really sucks” and “oh shit, I’m going to be dealing with the consequences of this for years” when you’ve never been on the latter end of the spectrum. Again, I love my friends, and I’m happy that they don’t have to have these stresses in their lives, but it’s hard when they attribute my cautiousness to a personality flaw, and not to the financial reality of my life. 

Having no safety net is more stressful than you can imagine. Many of my friends insist that they aren’t really rich - rich people own private jets and private islands and party with celebrities, while their parents just own a modest condo in Manhattan and a sensible vacation home in Connecticut. They’ve grown up around people who are much richer than they are, and they’ve come to think of themselves as middle-class, even though many of their parents easily make double or triple the federal upper boundary for the middle class. But they don’t have unlimited money. They don’t have their own 6-figure bank accounts or unrestricted use of Daddy’s black credit cards.  If they run out of money, they will have to call home and ask for more, which will be awful for them - their parents will probably yell at them, and make them feel shitty, and give them a huge unwanted lecture about responsibility. It could have a huge toll on their mental health, and that really sucks. But if I run out of money, I’m just kind of screwed. My parents cannot help me, even if they desperately want to. The best they can do is let me move into the guestroom of their home, in a desperately poor rural area where the best job available is cashier at the grocery store in town, because it pays $2 above minimum wage. I wouldn’t be homeless, but I would almost definitely default on my student loans, launch my credit score straight into the sun, and waste months or years trying to get back on my feet in an area with no opportunities. If my friends screw up, they have to face their parents’ scorn and disappointment. If I screw up, I have to face my entire life coming apart at the seams. Living with that constantly hanging over your head can affect your entire life, and it really does feel like you’re trying to walk across a tightrope dozens of feet up, with no net to catch you if you fall.  Once again, I love my friends dearly, and I am grateful to have every single one of them in my life. They have made my life and my time at graduate school infinitely better with their humour, their wit, their friendship and their sympathetic ears. I am in no way blaming them for the way they grew up - they didn’t choose their lives any more than I did, and many of them appreciate how lucky they are. But there’s still a gulf between me and them, and it’s one that can be surprisingly difficult to cross. My rich friends love me, but they don’t understand me. They don’t understand that money isn’t just an aspect of my life - it shapes my entire life, for better or for worse, and I don’t have the luxury of forgetting that it exists for even a moment. My rich friends love me, and they try. But they just don’t get it. 

[lesbianrey]

shout out to me in 5 years…hope shes doing something cool i’m rooting for her

[happilyconfusedpsychmajor]

Tell me!

What do y’all want in content? How can I be of service to you? It’s what I’m here for ☺️🙏

[theshitneyspears]

2019 isn’t going to be any different unless you actually put effort in to change it

[happilyconfusedpsychmajor]

You can take some time off and still be a productive person. Time off is needed.

- things we can remind ourselves when it gets to be to much

[brambeag]

IN 2019 WE HEAL + WE THRIVE

[studyandstorms-deactivated20250]

Okay, you messed up, whatever it is didn’t go to plan. Maybe you didn’t study today. Maybe you procrastinated all day. Maybe you gave up on that essay you need to write. Maybe you didn’t write that lab report. Maybe you had to sit a test without being prepared and are pretty sure you failed. So what? Mistakes happen, they’re a part of life and there’s nothing you can do now. Where do you go from here? Give up entirely or learn from this experience and do the best you can from now on? You can come back from this, it’ll be okay.

[raisingwildrabbitts]

Mental health first, everything else will follow.

[krablord]

So I found a site that does a subscription box for your period- it sends you basics like hygiene products, pain medication as well as snacks and pampering stuff to make you feel good, 

but the best thing is they have a specialty boxes, like vegan or kosher only snacks but also 

they specifically offer boxes for menstruating guys and nb folks. 

which is pretty darn cool.

it’s called bonjourjolie and I think it’s 1000% awesome tbh 

[sketchthetrees-blog]

i think this is the best thing omf

[writerpyre]

@mygenderadventures, don’t know if this is content you’d put on your blog, but I think this is fantastic.

[mygenderadventures]

I don’t tend to post non-art stuff but thanks for the shout-out anyway!!! I’m sure this will be of interest to a few people here :)

[yournewapartment]

This is such an exciting thing!!

Please don’t read the comments, some people are so embarrassingly uneducated and cruel. YNA supports our trans and nonbinary followers! ❤️❤️

[mylegendaryquotes-deactivated20]

Whoever came up with this idea is just awesome. They really take their costumers’ diets into account, like there’s so many options. Look at all this

And if they still don’t have a box to accommodate your needs, you can even order special items and ask for a box that doesn’t have anything you’re allergic to in it

Not to mention how amazing this is

I hope this service might help some of you guys

[studyquill]

as requested by quite a few people - a masterpost of educational podcasts. links go to either the site or the itunes podcast store. an excerpt of the description is included with each.

* indicates a podcast that i listen to regularly

entertainment

*welcome to night vale - twice-monthly updates for the small desert town of night vale

*muggle cast - everything harry potter

general information 

radiolab - investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea

*stuff you should know - about everything from genes to the galapagos

*stuff mom never told you - the business of being women 

tedtalks

good job, brain - part pub quiz show, part offbeat news

news

no one knows anything - the politics podcast from buzzfeed news

wait wait…don’t tell me - weekly current events quiz

college

*college info geek - the strategies and tactics the best students use

*getting in - your college admissions companion

math

math for primates - a couple of monkeys who decided that arguing about mathematics was a better use of their time than throwing poo at one another

math mutation - fun, interesting, or just plain weird corners of mathematics

science

60 second health - latest health and medical news

the naked scientists - interviews with top scientists, hands-on science experiments

60 second science - the most interesting developments in the world of science

startalk - astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe

nasa science cast - science behind discoveries on earth, the solar system, and beyond

history

*myths and legends - myths, legends, and folklore that have shaped cultures

stuff you missed in history class - the greatest and strangest stuff you missed

the podcast history of our world - from the big bang to the modern age! …eventually

witness - the story of our times told by the people who were there

the history chicks - two women. half the population. several thousands years of history.

entrepreneurship & finances

practical money matters - better managing their finances

the internet business mastery - learn how to create an internet based business

social triggers insider - the fields of psychology and human behavior

listen money matters - honest and uncensored, this is not your father’s boring finance show

writing & literature

professional book nerds - it’s our job to discuss books all day long

a way with words - words, language, and how we use them

grammar girl - short, friendly tips to improve your writing

classic poetry aloud - recordings of the greats poems of the past

language

esl (english) - improve english speaking and listening skills

language pod

coffee break

search in your podcast app for specific languages!

art

99% invisible - exploration of the process and power of design

tips and tricks photography 

the arts roundtable

hobbies & other

stash & burn (knitting)

practical defense - staying safe in our increasingly dangerous urban environments

zen and the art of triathlon - a triathlete’s view on living the multisport life

the art of charm - make you a better networker, connecter, and thinker

the indoor kids - isn’t just about video games, isn’t not about video games

rationally speaking - explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense

the dice tower - board games, card games, and the people who design and play them

motivational & inspirational

back to work - productivity, communication, work, barriers, constraints, tools, and more

personal growth podcast - classic and contemporary self development audio

what it takes - conversations with towering figures in almost every field

here be monsters - exploring the dark corners of the human mind

on being - the big questions of meaning with scientists, theologians, artists, teachers

[havingcompassion-deactivated202]

Once you stop trying to entertain this imaginary audience and start living for yourself things should get a bit better

[digoxin-purpurea]

apply for jobs you’re not qualified for! audit upper-level classes! get drunk with your TAs! see that poster advertising that lecture series? go there take notes and ask questions! thank the presenter for talking about this topic you love! if the class is full before you register, email the professor and ask if they can squeeze you in! RAISE YOUR HAND! tell the disability accomodation office to do their goddamn job! ask for help! file complaints! go to class in your pajamas and destroy the reading! you got this! you KNOW you got this! be arrogant enough to learn EVERYTHING! take your meds! punch a velociraptor in the dick! fear is useless and temporary! glory is forever! shed your skin and erupt angel wings! help out! spread your sun!

i had a really good morning! you deserve a really good morning! kill anyone who says you don’t and build a throne from their bones!

[sirjefetheboss-deactivated20210]

Oddly inspiring