Wednesday Wisdom

January is a tough time of year. We got a week or so when the university shut down, which is nice, but getting organized in January is a whole other story! It feels like it takes the whole month just to get back in the groove, and then suddenly you're 1/3 of the way through the semester.

A lot of students who feel like this will decide it's time to "catch up" because they feel behind. And while there may be things that you need to catch up on, this can also turn into a trap where you spend your whole semester behind.

What should you do instead? Set priorities so you can continue to move forward instead of falling further behind. This is kind of like slowing down to speed up, and it can feel counter-productive, but when you're working in a short timeline (like a 12 or 14 week semester), this can be really effective.

Instead of making a giant list of all the review and assignments you've missed, just list the things that you still need to do.

This is going to require you to make some big decisions. For example, if you are in a class that has weekly online posts that are worth 10% for all the posts over the semester - is it worth it to go back and do the 4 posts you missed? Or should you just do the rest of them as you move forward? Losing 3% of your total course grade may be more effective than spending several hours stressing over online posts.

When you're making these decisions, you want to think about the impact on your grade and the impact in the rest of the course as you move forward, as well as whether you have the capacity to do the work.

Resources

As you would expect, I follow a lot of academics on social media, and one of my favourites is Aeriell of Grad Life Grind. She posts about her own experiences as a grad student, as well as tips for those who want to continue their studies in psychology. On Feb 2, she's hosting a webinar for students who plan to continue on to doctoral studies in clinical psych, counselling psych, or school pscyh in Canada or the US. And if you're not ready to attend, head over to Instagram and give her a follow!

ChooseYourUni News

We've launched our first coaching package! The Scholarship Coaching package includes: 4 one-on-one online coaching sessions, a list of 200+ scholarships for Canadian students, and access to the online scholarship course. Sessions can be scheduled over 4 or 8 weeks (1 session per week), and by the end you'll have a tailored list of scholarships to apply for, as well as your next couple of scholarship applications ready!