When I first transitioned from high school to university, the one thing that I missed the most was having deadlines set for me. My teachers planned each week of the year. In university, while we have major assignments and exam deadlines given to us, we still have to come up with a study schedule to manage our time efficiently. This week I attended two events. One event was the Follow-up Fridays: Accountability Group and the other event was the ADHD Peer Connections.
Follow-up Fridays: Accountability Groups are co-facilitated by learning strategists and student peer mentors from both Academic Success and Accessibility Services. In this session, I shared my academic progress with other students. I learned from other students about reflecting on my progress throughout the week and how to positively reframe any setbacks. I also had the opportunity to have short breakout room discussions with peer mentors to assess my studying and time management techniques. My peer mentor gave me some really good advice that was specific to my learning style and habits. During this session, I and the group of students shared insights of each other's week where we spoke about what tends to go wrong and how each of us tackle the setbacks. This helped me realize that I am not the only one struggling and gave me new ideas of how to tackle this stress. Throughout this session, I felt like I am not only creating a timely schedule for myself, but it is also one that I can follow since it catered to my needs.
The ADHD Peer Connections group is an online space to connect with other students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), facilitated by a Ph.D. student with lived experience, and whose Ph.D. is in ADHD. At this session, I learned study tips specific to people who struggle with their ADHD symptoms and which learning strategies work best for them. One of the things I really liked about this session is that it catered to every student uniquely. Since all of us have different experiences in our day-to-day lives, by sharing each other's experiences, I learned a lot that I didn't know before. Simultaneously, I was also able to find peers who struggled like me and learn about different techniques they used that helped them.
I thoroughly enjoyed each session. All of my peers were incredibly approachable and I never felt left out. I was also able to make some new friends. After I left these two sessions, I felt like I was back in my comfort zone, with the set time schedules and comfortable routines. Learning new strategies is always very fun for me because I find out about strengths and weaknesses I didn't know I had. I recommend trying out academic success workshops at the university.
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