My first week of classes has been great! I love my university campus and the courses I’m taking. I’m really surprised by which course is more challenging for me though. My statistics prof was really great and engaging and economics is really interesting so far. But introductory financial accounting has been hard for me to wrap my head around and absorb the material, and I’m not sure why. I’m going to watch some YouTube videos and supplement my learning that way, hopefully that’ll help!
I just wrote out basically the entirety of this post, and then refreshed the page by instinct and lost everything. Lesson learned: save your posts as drafts consistently. Here we go again!
I’ve noticed a few more of you around here since my last post, and whether you’re current/prospective/not Smithies, I’d love to hear from y’all! My ask box is always open, same with my PMs. Like many of us, I’ll take almost any form of human interaction during these dystopian times.
Anyway, classes! Today is the Monday of my second week of classes, and I realized I hadn’t made a post about my first week of classes! Important context before I get there, though, is that so far throughout this pandemic, I haven’t really been able to just sit down and focus on my classes; there was always something else more urgent, whether it be Trump trying to deport all international students (a scare that happened twice over the summer!), me coming out to my parents, or dealing with some pretty terrible personal stuff towards the end of 2020.
I’m not saying this as an ‘oh my life is SO hard’ but as a way to show the reasons for which I was feeling like I was slipping on my academics. And so, I knew that going into my fourth Smith semester (that feels unreal to type, woah), I wanted/needed to change something, for my own mental stability.
For me, this ended up being a commitment to attending as many classes as possible (progress update: I’ve only slept through two morning classes! working on it), leaving my camera on for more than 95% of the time, as well as participating in all the ways I can: answering questions as often as possible, being active in Slack, Piazza, etc.
Something I’ve found REALLY helpful in the process has been something that I’ve personally known about for ages: the pomodoro technique (work cycles of 25 minutes followed by 5 minute breaks, and no more than 4 sessions consecutively). I haven’t really used this method previously because I had the skewed belief that my Romanian high school education cultivated in me: you just need to hammer away at a task, not getting up from your desk, until it’s done. Pair that with my previously untreated ADHD, and it suddenly makes sense why I was struggling (other than the whole, y’know, pandemic thing or whatever).
The most pressing deadline I have at the moment is a video project for Smith’s My Global Story event. It was technically due yesterday, but I was thankfully able to get an extension because I wasn’t quite done with it. I might upload it either here or on YouTube afterwards, but that’s a problem for future me to figure out.
Lastly, one thing I was considering recently is starting the 100 days of productivity challenge; I wouldn’t be aiming to do it every single day for the next 100 days, but to have it finished by the end of the calendar year. Maybe COVID will be done by then, huh?
first full week of classes summary: I cried when I saw a dog the same breed as mine
Some things to note:
1) I’m still so fucking lonely
2) class is actually pretty enjoyable especially when it’s interesting
3) not taking early morning classes might be the best decision of my career
4) loneliness is so hard to deal with when you’re 8 hours from home
My heart hurts and I miss my dog and my bed and my cousin is actually here right now but I think that’s making it worse because I’m being reminded that this is like the first real social interaction I’ve had in weeks. Again I know everything is gonna work out but until it does fuck guys I’m so lonely and I feel like it’s all my fault and I found out some of the people I hang with have a groupchat and I’m not in it and that’s how they make plans. It’s a Saturday night at 8:30 and I’m in bed already and my anxiety is through the fucking roof
In other news my professor really liked my set design!! I’m in a set design class and he was super impressed which I’m really proud of bc I’m the only first year in the class. Also i auditioned for a show and callbacks are tomorrow so wish me luck.
By the way there’s so much reading in college like ik people say there’s so much reading but there is So Much Reading
this one’s pretty interesting, especially since i’ve been dreaming of taking college classes ever since freshman year of high school. i’ve just gone through the fourth day of classes and i’ve gone through quite some thoughts.
. initial opinions .
i have to admit, i was freaked out. especially as an international student, everything was new: the concept of a syllabus, the difficulty, the weird mixture of freedom and workload, it was a lot to adjust to. some of my teachers seemed to have unrealistically high expectations, and i just genuinely felt like i was behind even in my intro classes, even when we hadn’t even gone through any course material.
. second take .
this is where i was able to take a breath of fresh air. a bit more adjusted to the work-school-friends balance and having gone through a couple of assignments, i was able to remind myself that i’m taking all of my classes because the class subjects deeply interest me. as soon as that was out of the way, it wasn’t long until anxiety gave way to excitement, and i still don’t quite know how that happened. i am no longer as focused on what i don’t know, but on all the interesting things i get the chance to study.
