Awesome Buddy Nights In for the Financially Impaired Student

The friends you make at college are such an important part of the experience. But for a lot of people, the high-life of hitting the town and spending cash at all sorts of fancy establishments just isn’t a reality. It costs too much! But that doesn’t mean you can’t find the time and opportunity to just chillax and enjoy some company. Instead, let’s look at some of the three relatively inexpensive options to kick it with your buds.

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An old school multiplayer session

More and more people are getting into video games. There’s a good chance that some of your housemates and your inner circle are going to share that passion if you have it. We tend to gravitate towards people who have similar quirks to us, after all. One way to make those competitive and cooperative gaming sessions a lot more fun is to use it as an opportunity to take a good old fashioned nostalgia trip. Old school games tend to get people bonding over memories that they might already hold dear. To be completely honest, there’s a bit of ironic enjoyment to be found in the blocky characters of Tekken 2 and other little flaws of those much-treasured games, too.

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Netflix party

The chances are that you’re already going to be sharing some kind of TV streaming service with whoever you share a room or an apartment with. If you have a friend or two who spend a lot more time at yours than at their own place, it might be worth getting them to pitch in, too. With Secure Thoughts, you can get access to an even wider library of shows, as well. That way, you got plenty of fuel to keep these sessions going long into the future. Netflix parties (or Amazon TV parties or Popcorn Time parties) are a lot of fun, whether it’s binge-watching a series together or intentionally picking out a movie that looks awful to replicate the Mystery Science Theater 3000 experience.  

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Ye olde adventure

It might take a bit of cajoling to get those who aren’t quite as nerdy into this. However, if you overpower them, then they’ll buckle eventually. Dungeons and Dragons is becoming much more popular than ever before, thanks to Youtube series like Critical Role bring them somewhat into the spotlight. The simple fact is that the same is a lot of fun when you get a party on the same page. You can enjoy serious, epic adventure together or you can all play a much more comedic scenario where you loot, burn, kill, and wise-crack at everything in sight. One of the largest demographics for D&D players is college-goers as well. Meaning you won’t have much trouble finding winning players. It takes a little investment to get the books and the figures, but those are one-off costs that pay for hours and hours of entertainment after.

These kinds of nights in are going to become the bread and butter of your college friendship experiences. The best thing about most of them is that they prioritize actually spending time with people and developing or sharing interests. Otherwise, most options tend to become about drinking or social posturing, which gets in the way more than anything.

Solving Your Study Stresses

Student life is often harder than we expect. Nothing can prepare you for the amount of work you’ll have to get through, especially in the lead up to exams. Of course, just how much work you face depends on how much you do throughout the year. The unfortunate majority of us think we have plenty of time, only to find exams coming up. So, for the most part, things get busy. It may seem counterintuitive, but during that last minute rush, it’s important to give yourself time off. Small breaks will actually help improve your attention. Burning yourself out will stop you absorbing information, and won’t help anyone. Here are a few ways you can take a break when you feel the need.

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GET YOUR GAME ON

Chances are, you’re already a gamer, else you wouldn’t be here. But, have you considered using games to help you escape the study strain? Many of us pack our consoles away during exam season. But, if you have enough restraint not to spend hours on them, they can be a huge help. Nothing is quite so good for taking your mind off work than getting into a good game. Plus, you can use your sessions as a reward system. Allow yourself an hour of gaming if you manage to study for two hours straight. It works wonders! Of course, an hour can quickly turn into more. Make sure to set the alarm and stop playing the moment it goes off. You don’t want to lose all your study hours! You could even get to grips with gaming on the go and take it with you if you study elsewhere. This is a fantastic way to achieve short-term escapism.

A GOOD BOOK

Chances are you’ll be sick of the sight of books right now. So, why are we telling you to read more? Because it’s fantastic for escapism. And because you can still enjoy personal reading, even after all those hours of staring at a page. It’s a good way to keep your brain engaged, while still kicking back a little. Break your academic reading up with five-minute personal sessions, and see how much of a different it makes. Your eyes will still be focused on the page, so returning to your studies won’t be a huge leap. But, you’ll still get some much-needed rest.

FRIENDS FOR ESCAPISM

Chances are, your friends also lock themselves away when exams are coming. But, it’s important you still take the time to see each other. None of the above will help you as much as time with friends can. If you don’t get out to see anyone, you’ll start going crazy. Plus, when you’re home, studying will always be in the back of your mind. You don’t have to go out for hours, here. Who has time for that? Instead, arrange to go out for a drink, or a meal with friends. They’ll understand if you have to leave early. They’ll probably need to do the same.

My Trouble with Transitions

I have a confession to make; I struggle with transitions.

The sort of large, seismic changes in the status quo of my life. Unfortunately, this has happened several times in the past few years, between graduate school in New Jersey, my first professional job in Maine, and now my current gig outside of Washington, DC. I've had to move all my belongings, get used to a new area, find my spots for the usual stuff (groceries, haircuts, doctors, etc.), try to make new friends, and get used to a new job all at once. It's really hard for me, and I only recently became aware that this is something that really affects my mental health.

The first step to any solution is awareness, so I'm grateful to have figured this out about myself. I can work to do better as time goes on. Nevertheless, it was hard for me at the time for all the reasons I mentioned before, and I also just felt like I should be able to handle it better. I was hard on myself and put pressure on myself to do better and not struggle with it since other people seemingly were able to do it.

There are fallacies interlaid all over the place here. We often only see people highlight reels and never see and hear the full stories. Also, what is hard for one person may not be for another, so we can't get into this pissing contest or comparison with others about what we were able to handle and what we weren't. If something is hard for you, that is your own journey and it is a fair and valid issue to be going through. Also, don't feel like you have to go through it alone. Tell your manager, tell your friends, tell your family even if some of them aren't nearby anymore. Call them, text them, email them, whatever you see fit to make sure you're able to just vent, or perhaps ask for advice.

Change is hard, especially when it is of the large, life altering variety. If we equip ourselves to know what support we need and try to mitigate the impact on our lives, that is as much as we can do. I know for me, it takes a few months to get to a sense of "normalcy". I've been here in the DC area just about a year and I'm still finding my way around and discovering new things. Give yourself a break, and do your best. It will get better (and if it doesn't figure out what you can to not subject yourself to whatever is making you unhappy).

Thanks for stopping by!

Book Review: "Give and Take"

"... when concern for others is coupled with a healthy dose of concern for the self, givers are less prone to burning out and getting burned—and they’re better positioned to flourish."

As a part of my professional development plan for 2017, I decided to finally read Give and Take by Adam Grant. I've been recommended this book several times by several different people so I figured it'd be good to get around to actually reading it. I'm so glad I did. I really enjoyed this book. I felt like it was speaking to me at just the right moment as I work to move up and grow in a very different work environment. There is so much good stuff in this book so the short version of this review is me telling you to go out there and get this book now. Here's the long version:

Through a series of interview, stories, and studies, Grant explores the idea that being a "giver" is the best way for someone to get ahead versus the popular notion that we all need to be ruthless "takers". Across all different industries, this theory holds to be true, and Grant gives objective evidence to back it up, much from his own experience as well as that of others. He also gives helpful advice on how to overcome common hurdles for givers, like negotiating, being assertive, and avoiding burnout.

"This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."

In a world where we're experiencing vast complex hardships, fear, and our social capital is at an all time low, I feel like this book is something we all need to read now more than ever. We can make a better world for all if we work together, trust one another, and build bridges, not walls.

"When people assume that others aren’t givers, they act and speak in ways that discourage others from giving, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple people for a greater good."

I hope you read this book and integrate more giving into your life in however you see fit.

Thanks for stopping by!

Making Time for What You Want to Make Time For

The title of this post is something I say to people often. It can apply to anything (and anyone) and speaks to what we value and what we make space for in our lives. Granted, there is always more that we can do with our time, but often, I find that people suffer from inertia coming from what they've always done or whatever is easiest. Time is a finite resource. When we "save" it, it isn't going into some bank to use later, we have to make the most of the time that is given to us.

An example of this that often frustrates me is people making time for each other. Whether it is friends, colleagues, or family, we have to deliberately make time for whatever we want to make time for, even when that might not be the path of least resistance. We always give each other the pleasantries of wanting to meet up and do something or talk more, but we often don't. After the long days of our busy lives, we end up procrastinating about these sort of things. Perhaps those are efforts that are best left undone, maybe they don't deserve our time, but a lot of them might warrant our attention and we have to push through the inertia to actually make it happen. If we don't then the decision about it will probably be made for us by the people and tasks we're neglecting.

We can do more and be better by spending purposeful energy thinking about what specifically we want to make time for and actually making that time. Schedule time to talk with that person you want to talk to, make a to-do list about that project you want to get done, and figure out what in your life deserves your attention.

Inertia is the enemy of productivity and the enabler of complacency. We can do more and be better to each other by being aware of it and actively working against it. We have to make time for what we want to make time for. Only then will we feel empowered to make positive change for ourselves and each other.

Thanks for stopping by!

Here is Why Gaming is Great for Socializing

A lot of gamers would describe themselves as introverted. Some people think that being introverted means that you don’t enjoy company or that you don’t want to have any friends because you prefer to spend time on your own, but that isn’t necessarily the case. The difference between introverts and extroverts is actually just that introverts also need their alone time to relax and to recharge, while extroverts relax better in the company of others. When socializing is exhausting, it’s sometimes hard to force yourself to get out and meet people – but luckily, gaming is a hobby that’s much more sociable than a lot of people think. Here’s why…

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Gaming can encourage socializing. Researchers have found that players of multiplayer online games were encouraged to socialize with each other thanks to their gaming hobby – gaming didn’t take away from socializing but rather it was something that was done simultaneously as people chatted online at the same time. If you’re a gamer, chances are you’re pretty clued in about what conventions are coming up, about anything from Star Wars to anime. Not only are conventions fun and informative but they’re also an opportunity for people to socialize, to be creative – generally, to be their best selves and to share that with other people who understand.

You can find romance online. Meeting potential partners through apps and on dating sites is how many people do dating these days. Going up to people in bars and clubs isn’t really the done thing as much, meaning that people relying on old methods to meet boyfriends and girlfriends may be missing out. But if you’re used to communicating via screen, you’re much more likely to be able to strike up a good conversation on Tinder or through another app, meaning that you’re more likely to form a solid, long-lasting relationship. It’s also been discovered that a number of people have found love through MMORGs – what you choose to do with your character is often indicative of what you’re like in ‘real life’, meaning that the people you’re playing with are seeing the ‘real you’ even if you’re hidden behind an avatar.

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There are plenty of games that are designed to bring people closer together. This summer, Pokémon Go encouraged people to leave their computers behind and take their phones outside, and friendships were formed as people hunted for Pikachu and shared Pokémon Go tricks in their local parks. Minecraft is also a common hobby and has captured a generation of children. It’s something that a lot of elementary school boys in particular enjoy that builds friendships between them, and it’s also a game that greatly benefits kids with autism as it’s something that they find a lot easier to understand than other forms of social interaction.

Sharing common interests brings people closer together. A lot of friendships are built through online communities. Some might argue that it’s easy to misrepresent yourself online or to build yourself up as someone you aren’t, and although that’s true, you can also build sincere and long-lasting friendships and relationships after you meet online because you game together or you’re a fan of the same band or TV show. Gaming isn’t just a way to socialize – it’s a way to build relationships with like-minded people who you might not otherwise have met.

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Keeping Employees Interested In Their Work

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One of the toughest challenges facing anyone who runs a business is keeping their employees interested in the role. With the day-to-day life of going to the office, a lot of people find themselves struggling to remain motivated. A good manager should be able to do everything they can to keep their employees as interested in the work as possible. But how can you make sure you are doing that? The fact is, it is something of a challenge. Nonetheless, there are some basic ways that you can ensure it happens in your business. Let’s take a look at just a few of those ways now.

Allow Open Exploration

One of the quickest ways to get people to dislike their workplace is to discourage the flow of thoughts. If your workplace is not allowing people to talk openly to one another, then this is a real concern. The ideal workplace culture is one which encourages the ongoing open exploration which brings out new ideas. If you are allowing your employees to approach their work in this open manner, you will notice some significant improvements. Above all, this should lead to some fascinating new ideas coming through about how to lead the business. You might be surprised to discover just how many great ideas your employees have.

Bring In New Ideas

Speaking of great ideas, having the willingness to bring in new ideas from outside the company is always a positive. There is a real benefit to allowing your employees to be open to new ideas, even if they are not directly related to the business itself. One great idea is to have a monthly or quarterly session where you bring in a public speaker from another field. The more dissimilar to your business type, the better, as it is the flow of ideas itself which keeps people interested. If you bring in the likes of David Icke to speak to your employees, you can be sure that they will be fascinated. What’s more, it will encourage an open discussion among the staff.

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Experiment With Procedures

All businesses develop their own specific way of doing things. This is just part of the nature of business. In many ways, it is helpful, as it means everyone knows exactly what to expect. However, it can also lead to boredom among your employees if you are not careful. If you are keen to keep your employees engaged at work, then you should not be afraid of occasionally experimenting with how things are done. If you shake things up every now and then, your staff will probably find it at least interesting. What’s more, it is only by experimenting that you can actually ensure you are always doing the right thing and in the best way possible. If you never experiment, you never discover the best way of doing something. When you do experiment, however, just be sure that you let everyone know what it is that you intend to do. If you force ideas on people without any context, they might not respond so well.

Hopefully with these tips you can reinvigorate your team to be more engaged so that you all will be able to do your best work.

Thanks for stopping by!

Building Fails: Common Problems in Modern Office Buildings

When we think about modern businesses, we often think about a bunch of people crammed in an office. To be fair, that statement could have been made at any point in the past three decades and it would have rung true. And, to be fair (again), modern offices certainly aren’t as dreary as they used to be. But there are now more people than ever working away each day in an office, sitting down for over eight hours for at least five days a week.

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The problem here is that many modern offices suffer from a few building defects. Thankfully, they’re often things that can be remedied. And if these problems do affect your workplace, you should look into them as soon as you can. They affect the health and productivity of your employees, so get to it!

Indoor air quality

The air quality of your average interior isn’t great. Even modern homes that look clean are often filled with dusty, germ-infested air. Sturdy ventilation systems don’t seem to be as prominent in modern buildings as they once were. In offices, however, things are often much worse.

If you want your workers spending most of their week in the office, then it’s only fair that you get the air quality under control. You have to make sure the ventilation is working correctly, and that the air ducts are free from dust clogs. Any chemicals used in the building process, as well as throughout your tenure, will affect the air quality. Consider talking to the building owner, and perhaps look into getting an air filtration system.

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The lifts

Problems with lifts (or elevators) seem to be getting more and more common all the time. It seems strange, given that our technology here should have evolved. But lifts installed in the past decade or so seem to be more prone to error than the ones that have been around for a long time.

I’m not someone who feels that comfortable in lifts at the best of times. But if it breaks down, or is running slowly? Then that will cause immense stress. It will also lose you time, which will drastically cut productivity. Getting these things fixed often take way too long. But this shouldn’t be the case, nor does it need to be the case. Make sure you look up the best lift maintenance service you can get.

Over-illumination

Over-illumination isn’t something you may have heard of before, but you probably already know what I’m talking about. Over-illumination is such a prominent problem that it has its own Wikipedia article! An overabundance of artificial light is a problem in department stores, gyms, and - of course - offices.

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There’s an over-reliance on fluorescent lighting in offices. It zaps away so much energy - and I’m not just talking about electrical energy. Worker energy is also affected. There are certain things you can do to maximize the light that does come in. But, if it’s up to you, you should look into adding windows and skylights. They’re not quick, easy, or cheap solutions, I’ll grant you that. But when you consider the positive effects of increased natural light? Whatever price you pay could end up being a bargain. You may also want to explore drop ceilings as a potential solution depending on the space.

These are just a few examples of how you can improve your office space. Being intentional and thinking about all the details of your office and how they can better support your team is important. It impacts employee productivity and retention, two crucial parts of a successful company culture. Think about the return on these investments and you should be able to get buy-in to create a physical space for your team that works for them as hard as they work for you!

4 Intangible Benefits of Grad School

The narrative that graduate school costs more money than it's worth has really taken hold in recent years. Just this month, a new article at Quartz pleaded with millennials not to "waste" money on graduate school, but instead to move on from undergrad and start a career. The article was not a scathing dismissal of graduate school by any means, and in fact took the time to acknowledge some of the benefits of higher education. However, it does ultimately serve as one more in a series of arguments against spending tuition on postgraduate degrees.

The argument tends to be purely financial. There are statistics that suggest that the return-on-investment for the average graduate school degree is not beneficial, at least in the short term, to students. This is perfectly fair to say, but it also presupposes that the key benefit of graduate school is the actual degree it leads to. Many would contest that notion in favor of the idea that the primary benefits of most graduate school programs are more intangible.

Frankly, I'd argue that the worth of a postgraduate education depends on each individual's situation. But in order to broaden the conversation beyond tuition cost and the immediate ROI of earning a degree, here are four of the intangible benefits many students do enjoy.

Postgrad Education Can Spark Passion

The popular job search site Idealist wrote up a list of possible benefits from graduate school education, and while many of them focused on things like qualifying for particular jobs or industries, one benefit that stood out was more intangible. That was that earning a graduate degree can "satisfy your intellectual curiosity and spark passion." This is an incredibly valuable point, even if some would counter that there are cheaper ways to find one's passion. The argument made by Idealist, with the support of comments from one former student, was that grad school gives you the time and space to reflect and wade through information — which isn't always possible in the real world.

You Can Generate A Sense Of Accomplishment

While all schooling is about learning, graduate school also provides (more often than not) the pursuit of genuine accomplishment. This accomplishment comes not just in the form of earning a degree, but through publishing projects, composing theses, working in important internship or research positions, and even caring for patients or impacting legal proceedings, depending on the program. In graduate school you get the chance to apply what you've learned in the real world, without the added pressure of maintaining a job, or just getting by. Often your first job out of college won't offer these opportunities, but gaining a sense of accomplishment in school can help to inspire you moving forward.

You Might Find Your Direction

This falls somewhat in line with the idea of sparking passion, but more specifically it means finding out who you really want to be in a professional context. Menlo Coaching's graduate school application coaching program suggests, through testimonials and basic instruction platforms, that there's a lot that most grad school applicants can learn about themselves even before they get to school. Crafting an application means articulating your qualifications and intentions and exploring introspectively what it is you truly hope to gain from the program. This remains part of the process throughout graduate school and often results in graduates having a keener sense of where they want to go in the professional world than they might have had following undergraduate education.

You'll Make Relationships

Some would summarize this idea with that broad, often meaningless term "networking," and others would classify relationships as tangible benefits. But the real point here isn't necessarily the people whose hands you'll shake in grad school, but the things you'll see those people do. The world of education beyond college is full of serious and ambitious people. Seeing them fail, succeed, socialize, and go about their everyday work can be an amazing experience. All of this can amount to a sort of real world lesson that sticks with you in the professional world.

This is not meant as a total endorsement of graduate school. However, hopefully these points helped to illustrate that the debate shouldn't be entirely about tuition costs and the degree itself. For some students considering grad school, it's what happens in between paying and graduating that really makes the experience worthwhile.

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Monica is a entrepreneur. She does part-time freelance writing on topics related to business and education. Want to connect? Send her an email.

Learning On Your Time with Online Learning Platforms

* A version of this post was originally featured on the OOHLALA Blog and on the Nerd for a Living blog.

I have been fortunate to work in student affairs for the past several years. It has been a fun and transformative experience for me. But lately, I’ve been starting to feel as though I’m in a rut. I’m ready for a change, perhaps into a new career field. I’m interested in getting into marketing, but I don’t feel like I have all the necessary skills and experiences yet to be a competitive candidate.

Wanting a more formal basis for this career shift, and not having the time to return to life as a full-time student, I began to look into different online learning platforms. Here’s what I discovered:

Online Learning Platforms – edX, Coursera, and Udacity

The promise of sites like edX, Coursera, and Udacity is that you can partake in, (often free), courses on all sorts of topics, (usually), on your own schedule. Think of these tools as webinars, but better in pretty much every way—and about stuff that you’re actually interested in. There are presentations, videos, and resources around specific learning outcomes and topics. The instruction is a bit longer than your typical webinar, but the end result is a wonderful handcrafted course that teaches you about a practical skill you can use.

The Sky’s the Limit

The breadth of content on these platforms is impressive. A simple search reveals courses on everything from game design to fantasy literature, superhero culture to programming.While some of these offerings can be fulfilling on a personal level, there are also many options to further yourself professionally. For example, I enjoyed taking some courses from the "Career Success" specialization offered by the University of California at Irvine. There are even connections to universities for many of the courses. This means they may also give you credit towards a degree.

All these online learning platforms offer a simple and accessible way to learn whatever you want on your time at whatever pace, (and cost), you wish. You don’t have feel anxious about investing in courses, fees, or books that might not pay off.

The lack of huge investment in these platforms is an incredible disruption to the education paradigm. It benefits any of us working towards work that fulfills us.

The Alternative Education Experience

As someone who works at an institution of higher learning, I am, perhaps counter-intuitively, supportive of these platforms. They help bring learning to more people in the world, which is what I hope to help foster in my own way. It’s why I got into education in the first place. These services embody the values I wish more higher education institutions would work towards. They limit financial risk, focus on the content, and create courses on what users want. A typical course takes only several hours to complete, so you could be on your way to a certificate or college credit within a month’s time.

While the experience of going to a college campus is uniquely beneficial, not everyone can invest in that experience. Also, the need for specific college degrees as credentials for entering a particular field is diminishing. In some fields, job seekers now just need to be able to prove they can do the work. Sitting in a classroom, learning about how to do these things, isn’t necessarily preferred. Online learning platforms can get you engaged in the topics you want to learn about, and won’t waste your time with anything else.

Low-Risk and Available Anytime

What my exploration of these platforms has encouraged is that it’s never too late to start working toward a career you love. While these online learning platforms will not be the end of that journey of growth and change, they can be a strong start. The best part is that you have nothing to lose by checking these sites out and diving into a course. They’re low-risk and are available anytime you are ready to engage.

I look forward to getting involved with some of these platforms myself. I hope the experience is positive for those who choose to get involved as well.