4 things not to do during study breaks

When I wrote my post about what to do during a study break, I felt tempted to write also about what not to do, so here is the follow-up with four advices addressing this issue. 

The first thing you should not do during your study breaks is going on the computer, unless you have iron discipline. Facebook, twitter, and all your other favourite websites provide more distraction than you are aware of, and before you know, your 10-minute break becomes a 40-minute break. Despite all this, computers and Internet may be necessary in order to study. In that case, download everything you need to your harddisk or an external memory and shut off the Internet for the time you plan to study.

The second thing is slightly related to the above. As much as you want to reward yourself with an episode of your favourite TV series halfway through the day, it is wiser to save these up for the evening. Your break is at best 10-15 minutes: long enough to empty your mind, but not so long that you get so distracted and your mind gets set to very different things. Episodes of TV series usually take 40-45 minutes to watch, which is far outside the 10-15 minutes range.

Next is staying in the same room as where you are studying. Being surrounded by your textbooks and lecture notes will not help you relax, so it is better to get away from them. If you really insist on staying inside  the room, then turn your back on your books. 

Last but not least, avoid stressful people during your study breaks. Avoid the people who always complain about things. All these complaints have a very demotivational effect on you that is likely to keep you from studying when your break is over. Also avoid stressful people because stress is contagious and another thing that inhibits good study behaviour. 

This was my post on what not to do during study breaks. What do you do when you take a break from studying? What do you avoid to do? Is there something else people should avoid during study breaks, according to you? 

Professionalize yourself online

Today, almost everyone spends time online and almost everyone has at least one personal niche on the web where they profile themselves. This is often a social network site, like Facebook or Twitter, but it is also common to have blogs on WordPress, Blogspot or even a website of your own.  It is therefore not unthinkable that people go look you up on the internet when you are going to apply for an internship or a job. I happen to know the lives of some people on my Twitter timeline from minute to minute, which can be amusing for the followers, but which also gives away very much about yourself. The people in companies and businesses who check the online profiles also try to analyse your personality based on what they find on your profiles. So, if you often complain loudly and with swear words about your jobs and lectures, they may consider you inapt for the labour market in general. Hence why I decided to give a few tips about professionalizing yourself online. 

It is best to start searching for yourself on the web first. Try different search entries, such as first name + last name + hometown, your e-mail address(es), and some other combinations of tags by which you are easily identifiable and findable. If you come across 'unwanted' profiles of yourself, delete them or, less rigorously,  (temporarily) deactivate them. I just found a LiveJournal profile of myself that hosted immature stuff from when I was a teenager, I immediately copy-pasted the posts into private documents and deleted the profile. My stories are safe, yet they are not openly readable to everyone. It is also important to browse yourself from time to time. When I googled myself a few months ago, my LiveJournal did not show up in the search result, but today it did. 

Now that you have searched yourself on the web and deleted unwanted information, it is time to take a look at the profiles that you wish you keep active and that you cannot live without. Facebook has an option that allows you to view your profile as it is shown to the public or to specific friends. Analyse all visible information: what do you want your future employers to know immediately about you and what not? Do you want them to see you lying on the beach in bikini? Do you want them to see you pole dancing on the bar the one night in your life you were drunk? Does it add something to you if your future employer knows how often you declare your love to Robert Pattinson on your wall? To all these questions, the answer is probably no. You either delete these things from your profile or you change your privacy settings so that only your friends can see these things. What you do want your future employers to see, however, is a curriculum vitae or résumé. I personally have my settings so that they can see my education and work experience. In the following picture you can see what my Facebook profile looks like to non-friends. No posts, no wall, just an overview of where I worked what I did there.  

On Twitter, you can protect your tweets, that is, your settings are such that only those you approved as followers will be able to read them. Of course, you might as well just think before you post. Once online is always online, after all. Keep in mind that you decide what others can see! Check your settings and deliberate who you want to see what of your online profiles. 

So, you have cleaned and cleared your social network profiles (at least, I hope you have, or maybe you were one of those wise people who never had everything visible to everyone). Now it is time to have a look at your e-mail addresses. angelofhell@hotmail.com or pinkpetals@gmail.com sound cute and might say something about who you are as a person, but in professional contexts, it is better to have a more professional address, based on your name(s), initials, and/or date/year of birth. My university gives every student a university e-mail address, based on initials and your surname. You may use this, but you have to be aware that there will be one day that your university mail address is no longer for you.

Now comes the real thing, the thing that shows the world that you are grown-up and mature, that you are ready for serious internships or the labour market. The most well-known website that hosts millions of résumés and CVs of people all over the world. LinkedIn. I was joking about the grown-up and mature thing, but it is a great place to show the world what you are capable of and what you have done in the past. It allows you to provide the world detailed descriptions of your education, (volunteer) work experience,  extra courses you have taken, internships, theses, publications, languages, skills and expertise, and projects you have participated in. LinkedIn is basically a website that shows an extended résumé of yourself and where you can connect with teachers, classmates, (former) co-workers, and other people who work in your field. Since it comes down to sharing strictly professional and educational experiences, it is perfectly safe to add all of your teachers and colleagues. I love LinkedIn because it lets me connect with teachers from university without having to show them my holiday pictures. 

What you see in the picture above is a short summary of my LinkedIn profile. But you still are not done. It is also important to check your settings your Google or Yahoo or whichever cloud services you use. Imagine you save your holiday photos in Picasa (using Google cloud services here because I use them most frequently), but you have them set to be visible to everyone. Unwanted situation, of course. The same goes for Google Docs. You just do not want your future employer to know about your Hunger Games fanfiction or your online diary about how much you hate how a course is taught in your university without giving any constructive criticism for improvement! The same goes for any blog, photo sharing, and whatever services  are provided online. Just check your settings and change them if they might yield undesired results. Congratulations! Now you can profile yourself online without concern.

Last but not least, it is important to know that it may occur that people from inside the companies try to befriend you so that they can check more of your profile. It is thus important to only add people if you have met them in real life and if you are sure that you are going to work for the company. You do not want to be refused in the end because some HR person you have never met shared your bar and beach pictures with your no-longer future boss? 

Do you have a LinkedIn profile already? What are your settings for Facebook and Twitter? Do you think twice before you put stuff online? Have you looked yourself up on the web already? How did that feel for you? Let me know! 

6 things to do when you take a break from studying

Studying, just like anything else you do, tires you and your brain after a while. While it is important to know when you function best for study purposes (some work better in the morning, others work better in the evening), it is also important to know that it won't help you to study 5 hours in a row without a break. Your brain will get tired and eventually, you will just be staring at whatever you do and function on automatic pilot, which is not the way to go if you really want to remember something. It is therefore wise to take a 5-15 minute break after 45-50 minutes of studying/working. Here are a few things you should do during those breaks: 

• Go outside for fresh air. Fresh air will really refresh your brain. If you really insist on staying inside (some weather circumstances demand staying inside), open your window for the time you take a break. Fresh air in your study room is just as important as fresh air in your brain. If the weather is on the better side of the spectrum, keep your window opened while you are working. 

• Exercise. I do not mean that you should go to the gym for several hours, but just a few short, little exercises improve your circulation to your brain and thereby improve your focus. Dancing to your favourite music also counts, so you might as well turn on your mp3-player and shake that booty! 
• Take a healthy in-between. I keep emphasizing healthy food because it is crucial to your entire physical and mental functioning. Bite an apple, get a whole-corn bun, or enjoy some non-salted nuts for new energy. 

• Relax. You might listen to your favourite music or anything else that makes you feel calm and at ease. Yoga / meditation exercises, a short walk in your neighbourhood, or a magazine are some great distractions that do not need to cost much time. 
• Power nap. A twenty minute power nap can get your brain back in business when you have had a long evening the night before or when you have just exhausted your brain with hours of studying. 
• Use your break to relocate yourself and your stuff. As I mentioned before, changing locations can help you memorize things better because you brain tends to link processed information to the physical environment and context.

So, these were the tips for things to do during a short study-break. What are you doing when you take a few minutes off from studying? What do you eat and drink throughout a typical study day? Let me know! 

How to choose a major / minor / master

The deadlines for (early) admissions to college programmes are drawing nearer each day now, so this is the time to tell you how to decide on a major, minor or master's programme. It usually is a difficult choice, because it may have major consequences for where you will work later and in which function. Another reason that makes the choice difficult is that your choice will influence how you are going to spend your time the next few years or months. It is therefore wise to spend some time considering the following issues: 

1. Are there special entry requirements?
   Some programmes only want to the most talented and most motivated students to enroll; others require you to have followed and successfully finished some courses. If you, for example, aim to enter a programme for which a minimum grade point average of 7.5 is required and your average grade is 6.0, it is a waste of time trying to get in. Also, if the requirements state 'a basic background of Statistics in which following topics were covered: z-scores, t-tests, ANOVA, and multiple and logistic regression', and you have no clue what they are talking about, you might investigate other interesting programmes. You can check this in the course guide of the programme.
2. To what degree does this programme deal with topics I am interested in?
   I started as a law student, because I thought that was the way to become a lawyer who is specialized in online copyright laws, feared by all online pirates, such as The Pirate Bay. Unfortunately, I soon found out that I would first have to go through 3 years of criminal law, constitutional law, international law, tax law, civil law, and all other types of law that failed to catch my interest, before there was a chance that I would learn some basics about the online copyright law. So, I figured that a broader legal interest than I had would be handy if I wanted to become a lawyer in a very small specialized area. Since I had a far broader interest in educational issues, I switched to educational sciences. This is also something you can check the programme's course guide. 
3. What are my future prospects with this programme? 
   As much as you may like your studies, you might as well consider the type of jobs you can get with your degree. An office job as a safety policy maker while you are more the kind of person to work as a bodyguard or security staff member will probably not make you happy. If you become a mathematician to become a researcher of mathematics, a job as a teacher in high school may not satisfy you. Nevertheless, it is possible that you get a job you have never considered, but that you actually like that job! You can answer this question in various ways: talk with the academic advisor of the programme, talk with people who already work in the field, talk with teachers who may have stayed in touch with alumni, thoroughly read the website of the programme and that of similar programmes in other universities, and ask at employment agencies which jobs they offer to people with a certain degree.
4. Do I think I can handle it? 
   This is partly a combination of question 1 and 2, partly a combination of other factors. Of course, studying a topic that catches your interest facilitates learning, so does meeting the special entry requirements, as these are mostly a foundation from which you build more knowledge about a topic. The other factors coming with being able to handle it are very much factors that are part of your personality. If you are good with numbers, a study in mathematics will be easy for you. If you are interested in medical issues and you do not faint at the sight of blood, medicine is perfectly doable. If you are a linguist ... okay, you get it. Discover your talents and in which areas your talents lie. During this step it is also crucial to find out whether you agree with the way they work in your programme (mainly small groups, individual studying, or mass lectures; assignments, projects or exams), how much presence is demanded (if you have a big job beside your studies, a course with little demanded presence is more ideal for you), and your own unique talents (you must not want to go into sales when you are a very shy person who always diminishes the self). 

I hope these questions make you (re)consider you choice, or that they help you make the decision. For a minor, which in The Netherlands is one semester, these questions obviously do not have to be answered as thoroughly as for a major or master's programme, because a minor will pass sooner, although you might take  into consideration your future prospects. A minor in which you learnt how to start your own business is more useful when you actually intend to start your own business and a minor with a focus on research courses is very useful when you aim for a career in research and statistics. 

What do you think? Have you given much thought to your study choices or have you always known what to study since you were a little kid? Do you think this article is useful? How did you choose your studies? 

4 ways to survive exam weeks

As the more experienced college students know, courses are tested and graded in different ways. Some teachers prefer just one exam at the end of the course, others hand out a final assignment. There's also a group that splits the exam in two parts, having one part halfway through the course and the other by the end, just as there are teachers who base the final grades for their course on several assignments. Last but not least, there are teachers who like to combine some of the above. No matter, however, how your course is tested and graded; it brings stress. Assignments mean deadlines and exams mean putting hours into learning all of the course material. How to survive this stress?

1. Remember that everybody in your class is stressed, too. It is perfectly normal to feel nervous for your exams and assignments. If you were not nervous, you would probably either be someone who is such a genius who passes all courses no matter what, or you would be apathetic about your studies. Talk about this stress with each other and try to help each other get over it by discussing course materials together and explaining issues to each other. 
2. Make a time schedule for yourself. Be it on paper, in your head, on your smartphone, or on your computer, it is important that you have some idea of what you want to do when (and maybe even where and how). This way you make concrete what has to be done and how much time you have for it. It also shows you where you might have some gaps for other activities than studying.
3. Take some me-time. I know it is tempting to pull all-nighters for studying and writing your papers, but this really won't do you any good. Allow yourself to sleep and to calm down before you are going to sleep. So, keep doing your yoga exercises, read an easy-going and fun book in the evenings, listen to your favourite music, watch a movie, or whatever calms you down and gets you ready for a good night.
4. Look forward and don't panic. While you may always feel you did not study as much as you should have, once you are taking the exam, you usually know more than you think. In multiple-choice exams, many of your correct answers come down to recognition, rather than to recall. If you are not sure about your answer, make an educated guess. If you really forgot the exact formulation, just blindly guess and go with your first intuition. In open-ended question exams, it is best to just start writing. As you write, most of the time you come to remember other related things. Neither question type is reason for concern. And remember, everything will pass, even this exam week.

Note: although it is normal - and even healthy - to be somewhat nervous and stressed, some symptoms may indicate severe exam fear, such as procrastinating studying, sleepless nights, hyperventilation and not being able to focus on the course material because of the stress. In this case, it is wise to consult with an academic advisor or tutor (or some other staff member you trust) to ask what you can do about it. Most universities will have student psychologists or student coaches who are there to help students overcoming the problems that are most common in the student population. Inform there for private consults, coaching sessions, or groups that offer techniques to cope better with your exam fear. 

If you have more tips and advices to share, leave a comment and maybe I will incorporate your advice with your (nick)name in the next exam-related post. Also, if you would like some more specific advice, let me know. I am happy to share my experience and knowledge with you!

Teachers and how to deal with them

There are some we love and there are some we hate. You are likely to meet both categories of teachers during your years in college. While it is peanuts to deal with the teachers we love, it is more difficult to deal with those we do not love as much. However, it is important to at least remain polite to all of your teachers, because they can turn out to be more influential in your life than you initially think. So, how to remain polite if you dislike the teacher, dislike the course, and dislike everything about it?

In my university, most of my Bachelor subjects are mandatory, and I think every program in the world has at least one or two mandatory courses. If this happens to be the course with the teacher you dislike, there is no way to escape, other than to change studies. It is, however, the question whether it's worth changing studies for only one or two teachers. Every department has one or two teachers who are didactically or socially weak, making them unpopular among students, so changing studies and departments is not really an option.

The only rule is: remain polite!

Here are a few applications of this rule. Always start and end your e-mails to the teacher in a formal way unless your teacher announced you can use less formal ways. Always greet the teacher whenever you see him / her. Always pretend to pay attention in class. These are simple, basic rules that become more difficult as you come to dislike someone more, but it is important to stick to them.

A second rule is to weigh and reconsider your words whenever you disagree with your teacher. You can say "you *******, ya totally wrong, ya know, *****?" You can also say "But sir / madam, if you look at it from this point of view, then you may get a completely different outcome". I think it is needless to tell you which strategy works better. Some teachers may indeed make you want to hit your head against a wall five times during a class period, but weigh your words! Otherwise you may say things you regret later on. Also, if you have a low grade, inform kindly why your grade is as it is and ask for constructive feedback. This will get you further than "I want a better grade!!!" This is not just to keep your relationship with your teacher in good spirits, it will also be far more helpful for you.

These two applications of the politeness rule do, of course, not mean that you have to become best friends with your teacher. It is also wise to keep in mind that you usually have a teacher for one semester or a part of a semester. Sometimes, courses are even arranged so that there is another lecturer for each class session. It is, however, more common that you have one teacher for (the majority of) the whole period or semester. In this case, the only thing you can do is make the best of it. Complain to students of whom you know they also dislike the teacher, remain polite, weigh the words you may need to exchange with your teacher, and remember that there are worse things in the world and that this course will pass.

Do you have teachers you explicitly hate (not asking for names here!)? What are your experiences with less favourite teachers? How did you deal with them?

Introduction

So, the holidays are almost over. Monday, September 5th, I'll have my first lecture at 9.00 AM. So goodbye days off and holidays and hello textbooks and lectures! Being a Dutch student, I have to do a minor in the first semester of the third year of my Bachelor. It might seem easy to choose one, but it isn't. Sure, some courses require their students to do the in-depth minor of the course and then there's not much to choose, but most courses (at least, at the University of Groningen) allow you to broaden your horizon by offering you the possibility to take classes in another course or even another faculty. 

Now, as with studies, there are many minors to choose from and each one seems more interesting than the one before, or so I felt when I had to choose. I had already taken the easy way by having chosen the in-depth minor of Educational Sciences, but then there was an announcement on the website of our faculty about a minor in Sociological Research. I skimmed the text quickly and saw that all students with a propaedeutic certificate from our faculty were eligible. Since I wish to apply for the Research Master of our faculty after having obtained my Bachelor's degree, I thought that a few extra Statistics-related lessons could be handy.

This minor also allows me to consider whether or not I really want to take so many Statistics and Methodology subjects during my Master and whether or not I can do it. Ambition is one thing, ability is another and in certain balances they can bring wonderful results. Either way, I'll have to take my Statistics book from the shelves and review it when I have time left to be prepared for subjects like Advanced Statistics and Model Building. Other subjects I'll have are Research Practical, Text Analysis for Social Sciences, Behavioural Theories of Sociology and EU Decision Making. All in all, it's not just about numbers and funny calculating signs, but also some actual Sociology-related subjects, which sound really interesting to my knowledge-thirsty brain :) 

I've already seen my timetable, which looks manageable. I've already put it in my diary and next week it's time for me to get some sort of notebook, the textbooks and syllabi and maybe some other useful things. I like to be prepared for the new year in college and I'm looking forward. If fate doesn't mess with me too badly, I'll actually have a title by the end of this year and the subjects I'm going to have make my heart beat just a tad faster, which I think is a good sign. I'll soon put up some more general and universal posts =)