One of the most interesting events that happened to me was on Saturday, two days before Veterans Day when my high school friend (let’s call him Michael) and I decided to go for a hike and catch up. We haven’t seen each other for a while and we both were excited about this hike. We left around 4:00 pm, anticipating be back home around 8 or 9 pm most because the hike wasn’t too long.
A couple of hours went by we talked about a lot of things: college, classes, workload, balancing, health, career, and life in general. It was a fun and relaxed trip until my friend said: “Let’s go back to the parking lot and grab dinner.” I agreed and started to head back from the trail we walked on, only to realize something was off.
“Shouldn’t there be a sign somewhere saying what trail it is and how long it was?” I asked. There was no sign anywhere and it was getting dark.
“What about the map?” Michael asked. We pulled out the map and tried to make sense of our location, but it was no help.
“Let me just use the GPS and we are out of here,” I said. I pulled out my cell phone, but to our dismay, I had no service.
“Hey I don’t have any service, could you check yours?” I asked anxiously. Michael had no service either.
“We are lost aren’t we.” pointed out Michael. I nodded slowly while trying to figure out a way to get back to the car. We decided to walk back on the unknown trail we were on and hope to see another human being or a sign or intersection. About an hour later, we had no luck but we kept walking. It was around 9:30 pm my phone buzzed with concern messages and phone calls from my parents and I realized we finally got the network. GPS led us out back to the car and I was never more glad to see a car or a parking lot until that day. We drove back home, and I explained to my concern parents what really happened.
Looking back, I realized we would have an easier time getting out if it wasn’t for how dark it got, because of the daylight savings time. But even more, I realized both my friend and I kept our cool and didn’t panic. Sure we got scared of snakes possibly slithering around, but we kept marching. Now, everytime we talk about this event, we laugh about the interesting event that happened.
The Socially Awkward Commuter’s Guide to Making Friends in College
Some people inherit the gift of being social butterflies. Charisma oozes from their every pore. Their charm grabs the attention and hearts of those around them. They would probably be exceptional insurance or cars salesmen.
Unfortunately, I am not one of those select few.
With my social skills, I probably garner the same amount of interest from people as a pet hamster does from a 12-year-old child. Initially, the interaction seems engaging to both parties, and there appears to be a bond forming. Well, the connection never cements. And five minutes later, they lose interest quickly and move onto something else.
Especially as someone that moved during their junior year of high school, surely I must have picked up on a few conversation skills. But even with having to form friendships all from scratch when everyone around me had been best buddies since sharing a cubby-hole in first grade, there simply were no improvements in those departments… No greater understanding of social cues. No refined techniques at striking up small talk. No common sense to shut up at some point on how Peter Gadiot from Queen of the South is the love of your life when you converse about favorite Netflix shows.
However, in spite of being a commuter that leaves campus right after class to chauffer their younger sibling to and from school and their extracurriculars, I was able to form a pretty solid core group of friends.
When you are a first year and a commuter, it is easy for the excitement of meeting new people to be quickly overshadowed by anxious thoughts of if you can even find anyone to connect with in the first place. Your first friend is not the roommate that shares an almost identical schedule of classes. You do not have an immediate group of friends from the people you see every day in your dormitory halls. And sometimes, you feel as if you do not have enough time to actually get to know someone especially if you have stilted social mannerisms.
But, there are thousands of other students on campus. Hundreds of them are just as new. Many of them just as socially awkward.
The biggest secret to making friends in college? Do not be afraid to say hi.
At first, you wonder if it would be considered annoying or an invasion of personal space if you sat in the seat right directly next to an individual in a lecture. Even so, you would be surprised at how many people respond back positively to you initiating a conversation. That’s how I met three of my current best friends. Additionally, eventually with such a large number of students, you will meet someone with similar interests, quirks, and celebrity crushes. And if none of those two pieces of advice worked out well, you can always bond with someone over a food outing. Long periods of silence are not always necessarily awkward if you and other people are sharing Chick Fil A waffle fries in that time frame.
Midterm Mayhem
For me, one word that accurately sums up the midterm experience is yikes. Midterm week was not the most painful experience I have gone through. However, I honestly have an exponentially better time sitting through two hours of rush hour traffic on the way home compared to when I sat down for fifty minutes to take an exam.
As someone who passed all of the AP tests they took during high school, I thought the same success would be duplicated college. Just keep your head down and work hard. Do not spend class time fixated on Peter Gadiot’s Instagram feed. Take a few hours the day before to study. Then it should not be too taxing to ace midterms, right?
Well, my strive for fives during high school quickly translated over into pleas for C’s at UCI. I studied for eight hours only to earn a grade that the teachers displayed on their post-exam score distribution bar graphs as barely average. Yes, I was incredibly disappointed with my results. Yes, I was incredibly envious towards the few of my peers who earned an almost perfect score. Yet, I probably deserved an even lower grade than the two seventy percent marks I received.
With round two of chemistry and biology midterms in two weeks and math in two days, I try to follow the advice I am giving now. One of the best habits I wish I had picked up on earlier was beginning to review at least four days before an exam. Though waiting until the last minute to study does mean you will be older. Unfortunately, it does mean you will be any wiser. Also, midterms do not measure how much information you cram in. They test how much information you can put out.
Two, get enough sleep. The few hours of studying you gain from skipping out on shut-eye is borrowed time. The stress of midterms was more than enough without sleep deprivation compounding it by giving me the mental capacity of a three-year-old. Also, especially as someone who typically does not drink coffee, I do not recommend doing so the day of midterms. Caffeine let me experience a momentary energy rush. But the effects of the high wore off quickly. And the crash was brutal. In my sleep-deprived daze, I had not noticed I wandered into the bike lane when walking back to my car. I am terribly sorry to all those bikers I inconvenienced and whose paths I impeded that day.
Three, find a balance between overconfidence and pessimism. Midterms are supposed to be difficult. I may not have gotten the results I desired on the last two midterms I recently took, but there is still one more plus a final. I guess instead of retaining a self-defeatist attitude, I just have to work harder towards the next two opportunities presented to me.
A fourth and final piece of advice. You may look up towards the heavens for inspiration. Down at your test in concentration and determination. But unless you also want to see the Dean, refrain from looking right or left out of desperation.
Good luck to the rest of you during your next midterms!
Midterm Time!
As we enter the third and fourth week of college, midterm exams come into play. While I haven’t officially taken any of my midterms yet, many of my friends and roommates have. Midterms are indeed stressful, since it is one test that determines a large chunk of your grades, but it is still another test. Studying is the key to passing a test, and since midterms are just a test, studying is the key to passing the midterms. That being said, studying is hard and I have not done any of it yet. Everyone who is actually studying right now are saints and I really hope that you pass your midterms, though my blessings might not matter since you have great study habits. And for those who don’t study or need help, I have some helpful hints and tips.
Starting the studying process is the hardest part of studying. The easiest way to combat that is to study as a group. That way everyone in your study party can encourage each other along and get things kicked into gear. If everyone works to a goal, in this case studying for a midterm, it makes the process more bearable and fun. No one is suffering by themselves. A quiet place is also a good thing to have when studying. Finding one is difficult however, because most people tend to study in the day when they are more awake. But studying at night can be fun too. There are more quiet places open at night because people who were studying in the day are getting a good night’s rest for the midterm. It also gives off a sense of urgency, since usually the test is on the next day, and that sense of urgency keeps you focused. However, at that point it becomes last minute cramming. During these late night study sessions I highly recommend someone to bring a pitcher of ice water and if possible, a spray bottle. The chill that you get from drinking the water can keep you up and if someone does fall asleep, you can spray bottle them. While that does sound mean to do, it keeps people up in fear of being sprayed. If someone is actually hungry, I recommend munching on some chips. It isn’t the most healthiest choice but it is the cheapest, and cheap is good for college students.
Studying can cause things that usually wont happen. One of my roommate’s friend came over to study at our dorm since they had a big project coming up and they wanted a quiet place to get most of that done. He came in at ten at night, and got to work. We all had our own things to do so we didn’t really mind him being there. I went to be the at around midnight since I was done with studying for the day and turned in. What I didn’t know was that the friend was still in the room, because at that point it was lights out. When I woke up at around ten in the morning, I realized he was still there, working. He never slept or even went back to his own dorm. He got so caught up in his work that he totally forgot where he was. We were all ok with it, but it was a kick to see them still at it for so long with no breaks.
Midterm Madness
Hey everyone! How’ve you all been? Thank you for having time to read this while preparing for your midterms! By the way, I have already had two and other two are on the way, so I’m already halfway through it, yay! I already got my scores and I did pretty well, which makes me really happy. I think, what really helped me is the fact that I have studied for it and was prepared. Now, that might sound a little boring, but the best way to succeed without hoping for any kind of luck is actually studying. It doesn’t have to be that you are staying up all night at Gateway on the day prior to the exam, instead, you better relax, revise and go to bed early. You just want to make sure you don’t ‘overstudy’ because it might have consequences. For example, my friend studied for the exam the whole night because he missed some lectures and had to study everything by himself. The next day after the exam we were discussing answers and his were so much different from mine. He was proving me wrong, being wholeheartedly sure about his knowledge, that at some point I started to think that I really might be wrong. As a result, after reading lecture notes (that I took when he was absent) and figured out that he has actually messed up a couple of things which made him pick wrong answers. Of course, I was sad because of this, but it also was a good example that night is not the best time to study as it is much harder to focus and remember everything. All in all, if it is was possible to study everything in one night, why would a quarter take 10 weeks to last, instead of having all the finals on Wednesday of week 1, for example?
It always feels better to be prepared than trying to catch up with 5 weeks of class at 3 am, right? I also think so! That is why I always tell this to myself when thinking about missing the lecture or a discussion. Again, this is boring, but it is what it is.
I hope you guys will find this both funny and helpful and will apply some of my experience to yourselves! Good luck to all of you! We got this!