The Latest
Building Self-Esteem when you’re Struggling with Depression
1. Get into the habit of challenging your thinking – especially when it falls into the same old repeated, negative patterns.
2. Keep a thankfulness journal – and deliberately look for the good things in your life.
3. Spend time with people who can see your strengths, and who make you feel good about yourself.
4. Keep some photos or mementos that remind you of your passions – so theses can help inspire you to love your life again.
5. Leave positive notes and quotes around your room, or inside your wallet, or on your desk, or phone.
6. See failure as a stepping stone that leads to further growth – and as something that is common, and experienced by us all.
7. Deliberately nurture and care for yourself – and see this as essential, and a top priority.
What I know now that I should have known years ago
☺ Make notes in class
Yes, even when you think it’s not necessary! You’ve got nothing to lose by writing notes in class. You can only win! And we want to win, right?! Sometimes you think everything is in your textbook so you don’t need to write things down (or type notes), but actually notes are such a good summary and they’re great for revision! So really, make notes! When you don’t have enough time during finals or exams, you can read at least your notes instead of this 9987166462 pages in your textbook…
☺ Revision is so important
So when you’re in university, you have like 13 weeks stuffed with classes. (in my country) And the first 6 weeks it is all so clear, you totally get it, you think it’s easy… But then the professor will explain difficult matters, as fast as he can. And you’ll panic because you don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. And then you’ll start studying the first chapters to understand the difficult chapters. And then you realize you don’t have time enough and the next class already starts and he introduces like 985557 more difficult matters and you’ll die! (or just fail your class J ) So how do you solve this problem? By avoiding this problem. Start studying from day one. Don’t procrastinate. Just summarize and study these first chapters these first weeks. You won’t have a difficult time understanding what the professor says because you know all the background information you need. So really: revision, revision, revision! Study small amounts of information, but on a regular basis!
☺ Powerpoints are life
At least in my university they are. So in my university our professors have a powerpoint for each class. Some professors follow the slides very precise, others will forget about their slides and just keep talking. These last professors trapped me. Because I thought “well, they don’t follow their own slides, so they’re not important, I won’t study their slides, I’ll just study their textbooks”. Okay, that didn’t work out! Powerpoints are always the essence of their class. So they’re always helpful to understand the focus of their class. Powerpoint slides are mostly excellent, short summaries of each class. So really, read them, study them by heart. Or just take these slides as a structure for your summary. Because these slides are a perfect representation of the structure in your professor’s mind!
☺ Exercises = Exam material
I’ve always been the one that knows the theory by heart. Sounds good, right? No, it’s not! I’ve always spent so much time cramming this theory in my head. So much time that I never had time to get to the exercises. So what happened? I often failed my exams because I “knew the theoretical part very well, but couldn’t turn it into practice”. And that’s why professors often said to me I didn’t have enough insight in the material. And they were so right. I literally knew everything, but I didn’t exercised it so the exam questions were always a big surprise and were a lot different from the theory I learned. If you make exercises in class, you really should read them, then understand them, make a step by step plan and then try to solve them by yourself! This is key, guys!
☺ I read it, so I learned it: NOT!!!
This is a mistake we all make. Especially when we don’t have enough time to study. Passive reading is very tricky! You think you understood it, you think you got it, you think you actually learned something just by reading a paragraph… Maybe, but not always. You need to be very focussed to actually remember the things you just read. So please, work work work work work work with the text you need to study! Summarize it, make notes, mark some words (not all of them!), draw a mind map… Endless possibilities. I garantee you: it’s less boring and you’ll remember the text a lot better!
☺ “Oh, I only got 20 minutes left, it’s not worth the effort to study now” -> SO WRONG
Okay, close your eyes and imagine you’re studying for a final which takes place tomorrow. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m thinking: OMG I need more TIME!!! We always need more time during finals. Imagine how long 20 minutes feels like when you’re on vacation and imagine how long 20 minutes feels like in finals week… Do you get what I’m trying to tell you? 20 minutes are important! 20 minutes can actually save your final. Now let’s assume you’ve got about 100 days to actually study in one semester. And every single day, you have about 20 minutes that you don’t use because “it’s not worth it, I’ll do it later when I’ve got more time”… Newsflash, you just lost 2000 minutes, this means you lost approximately 33 hours of studying. So just imagine your final takes place tomorrow, would you like to have 33 hours more? YES PLEASE! It only takes 20 minutes a day to gain 33 hours, it’s worth it now, right?!
XOXO,
Amberess
Wtf I got a place at university to study law!!!!!!!!
What I know now that I should have known years ago
☺ Make notes in class
Yes, even when you think it’s not necessary! You’ve got nothing to lose by writing notes in class. You can only win! And we want to win, right?! Sometimes you think everything is in your textbook so you don’t need to write things down (or type notes), but actually notes are such a good summary and they’re great for revision! So really, make notes! When you don’t have enough time during finals or exams, you can read at least your notes instead of this 9987166462 pages in your textbook…
☺ Revision is so important
So when you’re in university, you have like 13 weeks stuffed with classes. (in my country) And the first 6 weeks it is all so clear, you totally get it, you think it’s easy… But then the professor will explain difficult matters, as fast as he can. And you’ll panic because you don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. And then you’ll start studying the first chapters to understand the difficult chapters. And then you realize you don’t have time enough and the next class already starts and he introduces like 985557 more difficult matters and you’ll die! (or just fail your class J ) So how do you solve this problem? By avoiding this problem. Start studying from day one. Don’t procrastinate. Just summarize and study these first chapters these first weeks. You won’t have a difficult time understanding what the professor says because you know all the background information you need. So really: revision, revision, revision! Study small amounts of information, but on a regular basis!
☺ Powerpoints are life
At least in my university they are. So in my university our professors have a powerpoint for each class. Some professors follow the slides very precise, others will forget about their slides and just keep talking. These last professors trapped me. Because I thought “well, they don’t follow their own slides, so they’re not important, I won’t study their slides, I’ll just study their textbooks”. Okay, that didn’t work out! Powerpoints are always the essence of their class. So they’re always helpful to understand the focus of their class. Powerpoint slides are mostly excellent, short summaries of each class. So really, read them, study them by heart. Or just take these slides as a structure for your summary. Because these slides are a perfect representation of the structure in your professor’s mind!
☺ Exercises = Exam material
I’ve always been the one that knows the theory by heart. Sounds good, right? No, it’s not! I’ve always spent so much time cramming this theory in my head. So much time that I never had time to get to the exercises. So what happened? I often failed my exams because I “knew the theoretical part very well, but couldn’t turn it into practice”. And that’s why professors often said to me I didn’t have enough insight in the material. And they were so right. I literally knew everything, but I didn’t exercised it so the exam questions were always a big surprise and were a lot different from the theory I learned. If you make exercises in class, you really should read them, then understand them, make a step by step plan and then try to solve them by yourself! This is key, guys!
☺ I read it, so I learned it: NOT!!!
This is a mistake we all make. Especially when we don’t have enough time to study. Passive reading is very tricky! You think you understood it, you think you got it, you think you actually learned something just by reading a paragraph… Maybe, but not always. You need to be very focussed to actually remember the things you just read. So please, work work work work work work with the text you need to study! Summarize it, make notes, mark some words (not all of them!), draw a mind map… Endless possibilities. I garantee you: it’s less boring and you’ll remember the text a lot better!
☺ “Oh, I only got 20 minutes left, it’s not worth the effort to study now” -> SO WRONG
Okay, close your eyes and imagine you’re studying for a final which takes place tomorrow. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m thinking: OMG I need more TIME!!! We always need more time during finals. Imagine how long 20 minutes feels like when you’re on vacation and imagine how long 20 minutes feels like in finals week… Do you get what I’m trying to tell you? 20 minutes are important! 20 minutes can actually save your final. Now let’s assume you’ve got about 100 days to actually study in one semester. And every single day, you have about 20 minutes that you don’t use because “it’s not worth it, I’ll do it later when I’ve got more time”… Newsflash, you just lost 2000 minutes, this means you lost approximately 33 hours of studying. So just imagine your final takes place tomorrow, would you like to have 33 hours more? YES PLEASE! It only takes 20 minutes a day to gain 33 hours, it’s worth it now, right?!
XOXO,
Amberess