Hi guys! I’m back for tips & snips round 2. There’s no doubt a giant cloud of stress (maybe even a thunderstorm) hanging over our heads this past few days. For biomedders, our last mid-semester test was on Friday (yay), but our first exam is less than 3 weeks away (eek). The semester has flown by so quick – turns out our last labs and tutorials are this week!

Study fuel aka my diet for the next few weeks

If you’re a UoA student this year, next week on 5th June – 9th June, UoA and AUSA (the Auckland Uni students’ association) are hosting Stress Less Study Week (check it out here) which includes things like free yoga and puppies on campus!

Most of our mid-sem test results have been released but it’s best not to dwell on these test results (whether they are good or bad). If I’m happy with my result, sure I’ll be elated and proud of what I’ve accomplished, but I’m not gonna let that cloud the fact that there is still half the semester left to keep going strong. If I’m feeling a little disappointed, I just remind myself what is done is done. I probably should’ve worked just that little bit harder & procrastinated just that little bit less, but unfortunately we just can’t change that, so rather than fueling all those thoughts into ones of regret, I’ll try channel it into motivation and drive. Don’t worry you got dis.

Pretty much all courses at UoA have this thing called Piazza. The piazza’s of the biomed & healthsci papers are quite infamously known. It’s basically an online platform where you can ask questions anonymously and have them answered by both lecturers and students. It’s really active and your questions can get answered within minutes. Thanks to all the lecturers and students who help a gal doing her last minute cramming the night before 😉 But because of the anonymity of it all, means it’s sometimes not such a great environment. If I could give you just one pro-tip from this blog, it would be to unsubscribe from piazza email updates at the start of the year because a) you are going to be spammed everyday without fail including the ungodly hours of the night and b) it’s easy to get sidetracked on piazza and fall into the trap of feeling like you’re in some sort of twisted version of the hunger games by constantly comparing yourself to others. While its intriguing to know how your friends did, how the rest of the cohort did, and so on…Just focus on improving yourself and you’ll be right!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this on my blog before, but besides from the four compulsory papers I’m doing this sem for biomed, I’m also doing a fifth paper SCISCHOL101 as part of a subject called Science Scholars. It’s like no paper you’ll ever do. But basically because there’s a lot of pressure on your grades in biomed, it can make learning a stressful thing to do when it really shouldn’t be. For my scischol paper, there’s no assessments. No exams or tests or assignments or essays (say whaaaat?!). But the best thing is that for 2 hours of my week, I can just relax and genuinely enjoy what I’m learning about (super cool & relevant science topics) without the added stress. Stay tuned for my next blog about how to get involved!

Shoot me a question below & seeya in 2 weeks friends 🙂