Mental Health Fair

The mental health fair was a really unique experience for me. I visited almost all the booths and attractions but these 3 kinda stood out the most to me. The inflatable slides and bouncy houses really stood out to me, I think it's really important for people to just relax, take a break. and have fun as a way to de-stress. I know it personally helps me and it probably is the same for many others. The second picture was the mental health coalition booth, it stood out to me because I really had no idea that there was a group on campus dedicated to just educating about about mental health and all the workshops they host. The third picture was a booth with a post it board with the question "What makes you happy?". This one stood out to me because there are a lot of things that personally make me happy yet sometimes I feel that I take that for granted. I think that reminding yourself about all these things that make you happy is important towards your mental health and wellbeing.

Esports Studio

Going to visit the esports studio was definitely really exciting for me, I actually used to play a lot of games and watch different pro players compete online, so it was just a really cool experience seeing how a studio looked in real life. However, what really caught my attention was the amount of broadcasting/video equipment that was in that room. Although I’m not really into playing games competitively anymore, I’m really into video production/filmmaking so seeing all the gear that was there was sort of like a dream come true. I’m considering taking the broadcasting class fall semester next year. It seems like something I would really enjoy and I’m glad I decided to visit because I probably wouldn’t have known about it otherwise.

Semester Reflection

This is a still taken from a video I made back in October. I chose this picture because it was one of the few things I had time to create during the semester and I'm happy with how it turned out
This picture was taken for a review session for my final math exam. I think it shows how time consuming the workload could be given that solving out 1 question out of 10 in total took up a whole board space
This picture was taken some time in November on my way walking to class. I wanted to include this because it just goes to show that life is unexpected, you never really know when it can just burst into flames (literally).

This semester has honestly been pretty good for me, I've had a lot of time to reflect on who I am as a person, my studying methods, and etc. I feel that I was able to adapt pretty quickly to the college lifestyle since I've been to boarding school before. Because of that, the transition from being at home with family to living on campus wasn't really a big deal as it was for some other people.I'd say the number one expectation I had when first starting college was to make a lot more meaningful friendships. I'm a "thriving introvert" as some people call me so I honestly don't mind being alone most of the time but the more I got older, the more I realized that having meaningful friendships is actually a really great thing to have. So I’ve spent a good amount of time going out of my comfort zone, attending different clubs and events, and I’ve met a lot of really cool people so far, especially in scholars. However, right now, there’s not really anyone that I can really call a close friend.Time management is one of the things I struggle the most with and was the most concerning thing entering college. I get easily distracted a lot , especially when I have a lot of things on my plate. Before I just used to manage everything in the back of my mind, but recently I've found that I started to forget a lot of things I was supposed to do. To combat that, I’ve found notion to be really helpful with things like to-do list, and organization, while google calendar is really helpful for scheduling, and reminding me about events.Being at UMD has also made me realize that I've probably been studying wrong my whole life. In boarding school, we were taught that the most effective way to study was to just read through all our notes and essentially memorize all the important details which I feel didn't really help me learn the material. However, after being in a few study groups, I realized that active recall, and teaching others was really effective in helping me learn material for some subjects. But for something more concrete like math, I realized that actually knowing the answer beforehand would help me a lot with getting started and then after a while I would solve the question without knowing the right answer. Also another thing to add is that I created a spotify playlist called "get work done" filled with jazz style songs that really helps get me in the mood to study or just do assignments in general.Overall, this semester was a nice period of growth for me, and I’m excited for what UMD has to offer for me next semester.