Things you might hear after a first year midterm: “That didn’t go as planned.” “I failed.” “How will this impact by GPA?” “I’m not cut out for this.” U of T grading rubrics can be unforgiving. After the first tests…
Tag: exams
Balancing school, family, and friends: Family visits from far
Whenever my family asks me if I want to hang out with them, I immediately say yes. When my family visits me all the way from South America, and only stays for a week, I have to be careful when…
3 Ways to De-Stress During Midterm Season
Halloween isn’t the only scary thing in October… what scares university students the most: midterms. In the midst of midterms, it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed. What feels like endless readings and review questions, I sometimes feel like no there’s…
Time Management Takes Time
Time Management Takes Time, Part 1 So, we are into our third week of school (second full week) and who is already drowning in school work? You too? Okay, good. Same. The lead-up to school is always fun. The first…
Overcoming Perfectionism- Life as a Perfectionist at U of T (PART II)
In my last blog post, I wrote about what I’ve learned as a perfectionist at U of T. I mentioned how being a perfectionist wasn’t ideal when I’m on a time crunch, since I don’t have time to make everything…
Note taking: Handwritten vs Typed Notes
There’s nothing I love more than having aesthetic notes… or so I thought. For as long as I have been a student, I’ve always written my notes by hand; this didn’t change when I entered my first year at U…
Surviving Exam Season: Japan Edition
On January 28th at 10:00 PM JST, I jumped for joy and started playing “Freedom! ‘90” on full blast. At this moment, I submitted the final assignment of my first semester at the University of Tokyo. Due to the different…
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Finals
It’s that time a year again! No, not Christmas… Finals! *cheers* I’m stressed out about my first exam coming up so I thought I’d make my own rendition of a Christmas song to lighten the mood! I wish you a…
My First Midterm at University- 3 Things I Would have Done Differently
October is drawing to a steady close, which also means that midterms are ending for many. As a first-year student at U of T, term tests seemingly came out of nowhere, just as I was struggling to adjust to the…
Lessons Learned
At the end of each school year, I like to reflect on the biggest challenges I faced and all the things I learned throughout the semester. While my first year was really good and my second year was really bad,…