Category Archives: Caitlyn

Beating Finals Week Ahead of Time

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There is a lot of stress building up as we move into finals week, so I have started compiling a list of ways to combat that stress and use time productively.

  • I normally try not to reward myself for finishing another page on my essay or finishing a worksheet, by watching an episode of TV or scrolling through Facebook, because it often disrupts my thought process. But I feel that in times where stress is high and you’re working on so many things at one time, it can help to give yourself a break once you meet some sort of deadline that you’ve set for yourself. It is also proven that you should not study for too long without a break, as your brain can only focus for so long on the same thing. Taking short breaks will keep your mind fresh and help deter writer’s block and other lethargic thought processes. This leads me to my next point…                               
  • Set small deadlines for yourself. If you can make some sort of schedule that plans out small workloads for each day leading up to a final exam or paper, it will make everything you have to accomplish seem much more manageable. In order to organize yourself, it often helps to write down everything you want to get done and then write out when you will do each item on your list. This always helps relieve stress for me because I generally only have one thing to do on each day leading up to an exam and then I am not cramming.
  • Besides your small rewards for meeting smaller deadlines, it is so important to take time to relax. It may be hard to find the time to do so, but it is very beneficial in the long run. Allowing time for your brain to rest, allowing yourself to think and talk about something that is not directly related to your studies, can help rejuvenate your brain.
  • Eat well and get some exercise! Food and physical activity can help reduce stress so much. Exercising will help produce endorphins, which are natural mood elevators, while also reducing the cortisol levels. Certain foods can make you feel bloated and uncomfortable after you eat, which makes it harder to study and stay focused. Eating protein will help keep your brain sharp and fruits and veggies will help keep your eyes focused.
  • Make sure you are drinking water! I always seem to have a problem with this and find that I feel so much better when I drink more water. Whether or not I’m actually less stressed is questionable, but I do feel good about drinking something that I know is healthy.                                                          
  • Stick to your schedule once you’ve made it. It’s so easy to forget about it or lose yourself in other tasks when there’s a lot going on, but making sure you follow your list for the day will help make sure that you get everything done. This will help reduce stress, simply because you aren’t waiting until the last minute to accomplish these tasks.

Have any tips for the weeks leading up to finals? Share/comment below!

Overcommitting and Learning to Say “No.”

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This past week I have felt particularly overwhelmed with scholarship applications, cover letters for summer jobs, and choir performances coming up, all in addition to keeping up with my classwork, which included writing papers, finish problem sets, and preparing for the last exams before finals.

I am normally pretty good at organizing myself, keeping track of my assignments and projects in my planner, but recently I have not been doing as good a job at keeping up with it. Generally, I do better when I write things down so that I can refer back to my list later, but I have been feeling like I don’t even have enough time to write everything down that I need to do.

I called my mom to talk to her about it and the biggest things she noted were that I had 1. Overcommitted myself this semester, and 2. That it was a result of me having a hard time saying “No.” I have had this discussion with my mom multiple times, because I often overcommitted to activities and clubs in high school. But I have also talked about it with my friends at school, because I know that I am not the only one who suffers from this problem; many of the students at Scripps, and the 5Cs more generally, have a hard time saying “No.” In many ways, I think it speaks to the large number of interests most students here have. I know many people who are tutors, who are on a sports team, and are also science majors. Others are activists, members of multiple clubs, and students abroad. That was one of the first things that drew me to Scripps, but I also think that it can be a detriment to mental health and the ability to enjoy our time here.

My parents always remind me that college should be fun, and that I should be giving myself time to be with my friends and have time to myself. Oftentimes, I feel like I need to be doing something productive all the time, and I am realizing, as more and more time goes by, that, not only is that nearly impossible, but it is so important to have time where you’re not worried about being productive. If you are worried that you might be overcommitting by taking on a new responsibility, here are several things to ask yourself when you are making your decision:

  1. Will this activity make me happy? Is it something I enjoy doing?
  2. How much extra time will this activity require of me, and do I have that time to give? Even if I technically have the time to give, will it use up time I was planning to use for studying or relaxing? Will it create a back to back list of things to do on a certain day?
  3. What part of my overall health is this fulfilling?
  4. Is it something that’s necessary to my overall wellbeing?

If you answer no to any of these questions, it would be worth it to reevaluate why you are considering taking on this new responsibility and really think about what it will add to, or take away from, your life.

Have any other suggestions, or have your own experiences with overcommitting? Share and comment below!

Networking in Unexpected Places

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This past Monday, I attended the 253rd American Chemical Society Conference in San Francisco and presented research from this past summer, in addition to work that I have done throughout the past school year. Not only was I able to present my own research and discuss it with professional chemists and graduate and undergraduate students, I also had the chance to hear some interesting talks by big name chemists. This was especially exciting as they were talking about some of the newest techniques used in chemical and biochemical labs and discussing research that has exciting potential for working to fight off diseases such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s. Although I did not expect to, I had the chance to network with various companies in the field. Because there were so many people who attended the conference, there were many different companies who were selling their products, in addition to the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry. They had people giving away free products, trying to help people learn more about how they communicate to the scientific community, and also to network with students who could potentially become their employees. I am particularly interested in working to communicate science to the general public. Currently, there are very few resources that make it easy for the general public to learn about the newest scientific advancements, as most are published in academic journals and magazines. The Royal Society of Chemistry has journals for nearly every sector of chemistry, for example, environmental and biochemical, but they are all written for an academic audience in mind. When I was visiting their booth at the conference, I was interested in learning if they had any resources for the general public and was told that they publish a magazine entitled Chemistry World. The woman I was speaking with told me that they are often looking for freelance writers and that she could take my contact information and would have someone get in touch with me when they returned to the UK. I was very excited about the prospect of getting in contact with someone who works at the magazine and hope there is a chance that I could do an internship of some kind with them.

What I took away from my time at the conference was that putting yourself out there, at a place where people are looking to talk with individuals who are interested in the work they do, will often pay off. I don’t know what kind of opportunities they might have for undergraduate students, but the fact that I will be in contact with them is exciting and means that there is a potential for me to work with them and learn more about what I might want to do for a career in the future. I was also reminded of one of my favorite things about science, which is that it sparks conversation, debate, and curiosity. There were people who were genuinely interested in learning about the research I had done, and I was excited to share my findings with them. I found myself being sucked into lectures that were discussing entirely new topics to me.

I am so grateful for the experience of spending time with people who are just as curious about science as I am, in addition to being able to network with the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Have any experiences at conferences or networking with future employers? Comment below!

Paperwork, Paperwork, and More Paperwork

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Coming back from spring break, in addition to over the break, I have found myself filling out so much paperwork for so many different applications and programs. Whether it’s been applying for scholarships, filling out paperwork for study abroad programs, applying for summer jobs, or registering for summer classes, the stacks of paper keep getting higher and higher.

I decided that I needed a system to organize myself and make sure that I remember important deadlines. Here’s what I have proposed for myself:

  1. Highlight deadlines and key dates on information sheets that are giving you a lot of information all at once. It’s likely that most of what’s written is important, but by highlighting the main info, you can glance at the sheet and remind yourself of what’s coming up.
  2. On that same note, place these papers in a visible place, somewhere you walk by regularly, so that you will pass by often enough not to forget what the paper is even talking about. I often place them on my bulletin board so that I can see them on a regular basis and refer back to them when making plans or trying to schedule meetings or weekend outings.
  3. Get a calendar or planner and write major dates and deadlines down so that you can plan around them and ration your time. Writing it on post-its is also an option. I recently wrote about keeping a planner to organize yourself, and that helps so much when it comes to these larger deadlines because it can help you manage your time better. If you know you have a large exam coming up, in addition to a job application deadline, you can start the application earlier so that you can spend more time focusing on studying for your exam.
  4. Don’t wait until the last minute to start applications or to start paperwork. Oftentimes, questions arise while you are working on an essay or filling something out, and you will do yourself a favor if you have not waited until the last minute because it means that you have time to contact someone and ask them questions about what to do. In addition, it will alleviate more stress in the long run. Getting stressed about these sorts of things is inevitable, but you can reduce the amount you feel by taking the work in chunks. That way, you’re not trying to it all at once, which is always a recipe for stress.
  5. Make sure that you are still having enough time to get all of your schoolwork done outside of your paperwork. Although it may seem like solidifying summer plans is the most important thing, but it is also very important to remember that you are a student first and foremost. If job applications are stressing you out because you need the money to help pay for Scripps or are stressed for other financial reasons, reach out to those in charge of the hiring process. Letting them know that you are interested is something they will view positively. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, there are many resources on campus (including CP&R!) that are here to help you navigate these exact situations. If you are worried about applications or paperwork due for study abroad programs, reach out to either Neva or Patricia in the SAGE office. They are very accommodating and are wonderful to talk with.

Paperwork can be overwhelming, so it’s good to have a system in place that can help keep you organized and on top of things. If you have any ideas that I didn’t list, comment below! Here’s to the second half of the semester!!

Tips for When the Going Gets Tough

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When life hits you all at once, it can be really hard to accept how you’re feeling and give yourself the time to process all your emotions. This week, I got out of a meeting and immediately felt like crying. I missed my mom and I suddenly felt so emotional that I couldn’t hold back my tears.

At the time, I was having a really hard time rationalizing my emotions, trying to figure out why I was feeling so sad, and could not come up with anything that made sense. The problem I realized later in the day was that, my feelings didn’t necessarily need to make sense. I think that often, as women, we are chastised for showing too much emotion, often being told that we are too emotional, and also that we are irrational as a result. What I have been realizing more and more often is that you feel what you feel and there is no stopping it. I also recognized that my feelings were likely a product of stress, even though at the time, I didn’t consciously feel stressed.

This is a very busy time in the semester, with midterms and papers being due, and it can be overwhelming trying to stay on top of everything. If there are times where you do feel like pulling your hair out, or you just feel like you can’t take it any more, here are some things you can do to cool off:

  1. Allow yourself to cry. Sometimes, I try to hold in my tears, when I could really benefit from just letting them out. Crying can be very cathartic, and I often feel better after I empty my tear ducts.
  2. If you can take a step from something, anything, do it! Even if it’s just skipping a meeting that you were planning on attending so that you can take some time to practice self care, it will be worth it.
  3. Go for a walk, go to the gym, do something to get your body moving. Even if you’re not training for a marathon or getting in shape for a sport, just doing something to get your heart rate up can be so beneficial for, not only your physical health, but also your mental and emotional health. It has also been proven to relieve stress and can get endorphins flowing so that you feel happier afterwards.
  4. Call a friend, a family member, or talk with someone in person! The truth is that most people have either had similar experiences and can relate to what you’re feeling. It can feel so good to have someone affirm what you’re feeling, even though it is important to note that, even if someone doesn’t affirm your feelings, THEY ARE STILL 100% VALID.   
  5. Eat something delicious! I would not necessarily condone stress eating, though I am victim of it, but eating something healthy and delicious can help jumpstart your system and is great fuel for your brain. It’s not always to make healthy decisions when you’re stressed, but it’s the most important time to eat healthier. Try for at least one veggie or fruit per meal!

These are my tips, but if you have any that I haven’t listed, please comment below! Here’s to a great week, and coming up, spring break!!