Schedule your work time.

weekly10Many students have more to learn about structuring their time and scheduling their work. Remember, you can’t have guilt-free play time unless you figure out how to get some scheduled work done. Here are some tips:

1) Make a weekly and daily schedule (actually keep a calendar) – write down the times you are in class, the times will be reading/writing, studying with a group of friends, etc. Consider the times of day you are at your best for the various tasks and write them down on your calendar!

2) Don’t be unrealistic about how long you can sit and read or write about your reading – make doable times. Add more shorter times if that works better than fewer longer times. Know yourself.

3) Hold these times sacred – turn off your phone, don’t surf the web, don’t answer friends who want to distract you. It is your time to do what you need to get done (you wouldn’t walk out on a boss, would you?). Let your friends know you are doing this so that they can be on your side instead of trying to undermine you. You might suggest they do the same thing.

4) Schedule some kind of treat for yourself if you finish your scheduled work – meet a friend for coffee or tea, go for a bike ride, take a hot shower, buy a new song. Wait until you meet your deadline to do it, though.

5) Make a to-do-list. There are some free tools for helping with this. Check out Trello. It is free and anyone can create an account. It helps you create lists and set priorities.

6) Invite friends for parallel play. Sometimes it works well to have someone else working nearby. Then you can congratulate each other when you are done!

Navigating Study Abroad Info Session!

compass-for-geoThursday October 23rd at 4pm in the Merrill Living Room

It is never too early to start planning your time abroad! If you are considering studying off-campus or abroad, this information session will prepare you and guide you through the initial steps. Whether you want to study abroad for the semester or participate in a short-term field course in January or May, we will provide key details about all your options.

Div II Chair Process

officehoursCongratulations!!!  Almost every one of you soon-to-be filed Div II students engaged in the process to apply for a Div II chair!!! If you haven’t already met and talked with the faculty you have selected, you should make appointments to see them. The better they know you and understand how they can be helpful to you, the more likely they are to say “yes.”

Try a Concept Map (Mind Map) of your Div II

concept mapLikely, there are a number of related ideas that lead you to your main questions in Div II. As you try to articulate them in a contract, it can help to map them out – to see the relationships among ideas. Concept maps help us do just that – and there are many online tools that help you create a concept map.

Try to create a concept map of the major ideas that inspire you. Telling the story of the map might lead you to a clear articulation of your Concentration. You might find that there are a number of ideas that you really want to focus on and some more far flung ideas that you might explore if you have time.

Community Engagement and Critical Consciousness: a workshop with local activist and Hampshire alum Evelin Aquino.

Comm Eng Critical ConcFlyerThis workshop helps students navigate tensions that arise when theory in the classroom meets practice in a variety of contexts including community organizing and youth work in formal and non-formal learning contexts. We will discuss why we do community engagement and why having an anti-oppression lens is important: touching on issues of power and privilege, reflection, navigating courageous conversations, and building reciprocity.

Thursday October 30th, 6:30-8:30pm in FPH room 104. Free dinner from El Comalito!

 

Sponsored by Community Partnerships for Social Change and Critical Studies of Childhood, Youth, and Learning Program.

Keep your portfolio as you go along

Building a portfolio helps you keep track of what you are learning, what you are strong at, and what you still need to do. It makes sense to do this as you go along rather than only putting it together at the end of Div II. At the end it is too late to realize you should have taken a methods course or worked on your analytical writing, or added a media course to help you be more creative in how you presented your theoretical learning, etc.

Start putting your important work in a binder as soon as you can – kind of like keeping an inventory of your work. Add your evals and self evals after each semester. Look over them for patterns to see what you should be working on.

And importantly, bring your portfolio to your committee chair and/or whole committee each semester to show them how you are doing. It helps them advise you when they see what you are already good at.

One other benefit of doing this is you won’t be scrambling to build your Div II portfolio when you really want to focus on the transition to Div III at the end of Div II.