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My Brain Map

Shown above is my brain, or more accurately, the components of what I think about on a daily basis. The different sizes represent how much I value each aspect of my “brain.” As you can see, There are certain things that are much smaller than others, but we’ll get to that in a bit. 

Soccer

Starting from the top, we have soccer. As you all know now, soccer is something I think about all the time. I’m always up to date with soccer news, and I love talking about soccer with people. In fact, if someone were to take my phone and scroll through my social media, they would be incredibly disappointed since I basically only consume soccer content.

Video Games

If I had to describe my personality coming out of high school, it would be video games and soccer. Every day after school, my day would consist of soccer practice, video games, and then anything else I had to do. The games I primarily play are Overwatch and League of Legends, but sometimes I play other games when playing with friends. I’ve had less time to play video games since coming to college, but on some days you can still catch me at the Esports Arena grinding Overwatch ranked.

Schoolwork

Schoolwork is important! However, my mind has other priorities, for better or for worse. I still do my assignments, of course, but I need to constantly remind myself to do my work or it will magically stay undone.

Music

I love music! I can’t go anywhere by myself without taking my Airpods with me, as music is a necessity in my daily schedule. When asked what type of music I listen to, I usually say I listen to everything. In reality, though, I mostly listen to indie music. My favorite artist of all time is Fun (they sang Some Nights and We Are Young) but recently I’ve been listening to an artist called Maude Latour. I would categorize her songs as “indie pop,” and I would highly recommend her to anyone who likes listening to indie. Her most popular song is “One More Weekend,” but I really like “Block Your Number.”

Friends

Lastly, we have friends. The best part of the “college experience” has been spending time with the new friends I’ve made. Now that we’re nearing the end of the second quarter, friend groups have been more solidified, and I’m really happy with my group of friends. I’m still open to meeting new people, but having a set group to rely upon is something that I really value. I do things with my friends a lot, so thinking about them is something I do every day.

Well, that was it! Of course, there were parts of my brain that I missed, but as they say, if you forgot, then it probably wasn’t important! (Nobody says that) Anyways, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

Zot Zot Zot!

Ian

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As Time Treads On

Towards the end of fall quarter, I thought I was doing great, and that college life was going to be a breeze. Little did I know then that I was merely taking easy classes, and fewer units than I thought I was taking. I went into the next quarter thinking that I can handle whatever is going to be thrown in my way and oh was I wrong. For winter quarter, I took up an extra four units, and had both a science and math class back to back from each other. It wasn’t the best idea ever, but using fall quarter as a precedent, I thought nothing about it till I actually had to go out and do the work required for each class. It was a recipe for disaster and I’m still on damage control, but at least I know what not to do. That is one of the reasons why “trying not to fail the classes I have right now” is such a big spot on my brain map. It is like the most important thing on the table right now, because if I do fail any of the classes I have right now, graduating in four years become much more difficult.

The video games and shopping that is on my brain map is there as my de-stressing activities, which is obviously need here since of my classes. It is towards the back and bottom to show that I am doing my best from letting them consume my life since I turn to them often. I have friends and family on top of everything since I do still keep in contact with them back up north and they are important for me to maintain my state of mind. I can rely on my friends to cheer me up when I do fail that science midterm. They are all great people, and you should strive to keep the relations with your friends back home, if you aren’t local, strong.

Getting the classes I really need takes up a good chunk of my brain map because it is stressful being an undeclared student sometimes. Some classes are major restricted so even when they are open during your class enrollment window, they can’t be selected till the major restrictions drop. ICS 31 is a prime example of this sort of class. There is also the problem with the enrollment window itself. Since I am a freshman, I don’t really have a ton of credits just yet. That pushes your window back a bit and for me, I had the absolute latest window for last quarter, resulting in a situation where I have to constantly be on guard for a class to open up. Its a big thing on my mind since it is the time during the end of the winter quarter when the windows do open up.

Lastly, learning to cook some great food is a decent sized chunk of my brain map due to the fact that I would need to live off campus in about half a year. I would like to cook some great meals by myself and am learning from YouTube videos. Honestly, some of these videos are really good at making the food look good and not that good in teaching you how to actually make the food. Overall, this is the person I became towards the end of the winter quarter.

 

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Brain Map and Winter Reflection

Looking back at my last quarter, what comes to my mind first is that I am much more self-confident right now. Additionally, I can now manage my time better and also understand how important is it to have a good schedule and a plan for the day. I can simply say that I am more of a college student now than in fall, because I am not stressing out about the amount of work i have to do for classes, but actually do it. I love getting things done, therefore, I keep track of what I need to do and what I have already done in terms of assignments and time spent studying. This gives me a better understanding of my effort and makes it easier to perform analysis and improve myself for the better.

Taking all that into consideration, I feel like I have changed mentally. Take a look at my brain map and you will notice that I have a separate space for different actions categories that fill up the whole brain. This is a proof of my good time management skill; I have both everything I love and everything I need in my life in there. I believe that everyone should have a space for all these categories in their head. It doesn’t mean, that there should be no room to something else, thought. What I am trying to say is that I think that these are crucial parts of everyone`s life and it is impossible to enjoy the life without them.

Talking about each part`s importance in particular, I would like to begin with Eating, Resting and Health as they are basic human needs. It is important to not feel hungry, stay hydrated, rested and healthy. Otherwise, this is not a life, its just existence. Entertainment, Friends and Family, Hobbies and Studies is what makes your life fun and colorful. You get a lot of emotions entertaining yourself, traveling and doing your favorite hobby. Studies show you how much is still out there that you don’t know. Personally for me, Travel is very important. I love traveling to different places, learning about new people and cultures.  It is also an opportunity to see my family and to spend some time with them. I don’t really have a favorite place to go, surprisingly. I really like travelling around the US, visiting national parks and big cities like Las Vegas, San Francisco, and many others. I like to go to Europe too. It is so diverse and has so many unique old cultures.

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Winter Brain Map

I really believe that I have changed since the past 10 weeks plus 3 weeks of winter break, expanding my comfort zone overall. If you talked to me in my fall quarter vs my winter quarter, you would be surprised how different I was. Fall-quarter-me would be less likely to approach people to build friends, focus only on studies and would overall be clueless with things going around him. Winter-quarter-me would approach more people, talk to them, get to know them despite my shyness, divide my focus between studies, friends, and family, and have a better understanding with what I am getting myself into. To conclude what my mind was made up of during the transformation, I made a brain map which tells what my brain matter consisted of.

I chose these specific ones because they were really on my mind. To expand my comfort zone with people, I decided to talk to my hall mates, attend events and made plans. I attended different professional events to improve my networking skills. For my academics, I think about my Grades/GPA to motivate to study harder/smarter for my classes, while keeping in my mind about the major I want: Computer Science. This also keeps me motivated as my career life will receive a huge boost from CS. Of course, I utilize different sites, such as LinkedIn and Handshake to make myself available to the job market. Overall, I learn from my mistakes to improve my personal-self. To balance my important side, I often watch Netflix to pass time, play video games, and love to think about the philosophy of life in general. When playing video games, I play with friends as this also helps me de-stress from life in general, talking about our lives while playing Smash or other video games.  At the same time, I love to let my mind wander into the philosophy of life, looking at what life is from an individual, societal, and global point of view. While it’s not on the brain map, sleep is an essential part of my college survival and the best way to relax.

Constantly balancing and working on myself, I was able to slowly break from my shyness, which also resulted in improving my confidence as well. Overall, I believe that I made good choices for myself because I improved myself from before. Obviously, there were some negatives, but every coin has two sides to it. With the end of winter quarter, I realized I need more naps, and saw how time flew by like a breeze; time passed by too fast. The other challenge I faced is time management because I noticed hanging out with people took a good chunk of my time, which compromised my time for sleep, as I need time to study. Nevertheless, I am happy with the changes and excited as I head into the Spring quarter, ready to face new challenges and overcome difficulties.

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Into Nancy’s Brain

Welcome into my mind! It’s split into six major sections: academics, social life, sleep, food, clubs, and money. Let’s break this down to find out what I spend my time thinking and worrying about.

The top is split into academics and social life, split evenly because this is what I think about the most.

Academics: Academics are the most important thing in my life right now, because I’m in college! I’m here first and foremost to get a good education and give myself opportunities for growth. I dedicate a lot of time and brain power to staying on top of my academics to make sure I do well in my classes and learn the material. College can be fun, but in my opinion, academics needs to be my first priority, which is why it’s the first thing in my brain. This brain power is dedicated to planning out my day and deciding the best way to study among others.

 

Social Life: I am a very big people person and I thrive off other people’s energy! College is a totally different environment with so many new people to meet and I really try to meet everyone. My friends actually make fun of me because it seems like I know everyone. Whenever I walk around campus or I’m eating at the Anteatery, I say hi to a lot of people that I know, even though I don’t even live there! I love meeting new people and spending time to really get to know them so my social life is also really important to me. I dedicate a lot of time maintaining these relationships and checking in on my friends to make sure they’re doing okay. I tend to worry about others, because I genuinely care which fills up a significant portion of my brain.

 

Sleep: Academics and social life rest on top of sleep because sleep is so crucial for me to function. I know a lot of people who can run on three hours of sleep each day, but this is not me. I need at least five hours of sleep to function and succeed in my academics and social life. Without enough sleep, I’m easily irritated and can’t focus, harming both my social life and academics. Sleep is essential. I always do the math when I’m studying to see what time I need to sleep at to get my minimum five hours or plan out naps in the day to fill in the holes. College tip: take naps! Listen to your body when it says it’s tired!

 

Food: It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I spend a lot of time thinking about when and what I’m going to eat next. Please keep reading so I can explain what I mean! As a busy college student with a lot of clubs and responsibilities, I sometimes forget to eat so I need to think about the next time I have to eat so I can stay energized. Also I love that the dining halls post their menus online so I can see what I’m going to have that day. Sometimes if food at Pippins sounds bad, I’ll plan to walk all the way to the Anteatery for better food. There’s no shame in that. If I’m going to put food into my body, I’d rather have it be something I enjoy eating. I definitely go on the dining hall website more than I should.

 

Clubs: Club meetings are so hard for me to remember if I don’t go consistently because it’s not set in my schedule so I often have to try and remember them. Especially with Trance (Vietnamese Traditional Dance), the practices tend to change so I need to really be on top of it and make sure I don’t miss practices. Some brain power is used to remember the choreography too since I’m pretty forgetful. As an intern, I also need to help come up with new ideas for after events or improvements for future events!

 

$$$: College is expensive. It’s so easy to go out all the time with UTC right there or spend all your money buying food on ring road, but I’m always thinking about how to save money and not spend it unless I need to or it’s a special occasion. I have the dining hall with food I already paid for so I really try to avoid going out and spending money because I feel like I’m wasting the food I already paid for. Also, I always try to save money when I can by using Cartwheel at Target! I would highly recommend it!

 

There’s so many things to think about and keep track of during college, but these are my main six!