#honeststudying

-Create new ways to relieve your stress. You can do this by taking up hobbies that aren’t stressful like painting, reading, journaling, jogging, sewing and even writing fanfictions or tumblr posts (kind of like what I’m doing now). If you’re not interested in doing hobbies then you can also relieve your stress by sleeping, crying or even screaming in your room. Whatever activity you choose just ensure that it won’t cause you any stress or any harm.

-Find time to hang out with your friends. Now I know that we’re in the middle  of a global pandemic right now but it is very important to stay in contact with our friends and loved ones. So you can arrange in person meet ups with your friends. Just as long as you guys promise to social distance and take the necessary precautions. If you’re unable to meet up in person then you can also try keeping in touch over the screen by using facetime, zoom, skype, WhatsApp video call and many others like these.

-Form a spiritual practice. You don’t have to be religious to have a spiritual practice (not that I have anything against being religious). There are lots of stuff you can do in your spiritual practice. You can do guided meditations (you can check videos on YouTube), pray, make a gratitude list at the beginning or end of each day, practice deep breathing, write affirmations etc. These are things that you can either do by yourself or with your close friends and family members.

-Assign a ‘rest day’ each week. What I mean by a ‘rest day’ is put aside at least one day where you don’t do any school work and use this day to relax or do a hobby or do some self care or clean your room. Just choose a day where you don’t think about school or assignments for a full 24 hours. Trust me you may not think it’s possible but you need to start taking day offs from academics. Especially since many of us are unable to separate our school life from our home life now that online school is a thing now.

-And lastly check in with yourself. Ask yourself these questions as often as you can. “How am I feeling right now?”  and “What do I need right now?” This is important so that you don’t end up neglecting your feelings and your needs.

If you didn’t study as much as you wanted to, didn’t get as many questions right as you wanted to, or anything towards the lines of ‘you didn’t reach a certain goal you wanted to reach in a certain period of time’, don’t torture yourself over it. Let it go. Move on. Try again.

DO >NOT<, I said DO NOT do all-nighters. They’re so bad for your anxiety and for your depression, and can often trigger both of them. Don’t do it!!! Just take the time to write down everything you need to do and do it throughout the week, or the next morning. There’s literally no need to do it all at once if you’re going to feel so bad over it afterwards. 

If you didn’t wake up early, or as early as you wanted to, that’s okay, your day’s not wasted, you can still get a few things done, just adjust your day to the amount of hours you’re going to have. This one might seem silly, but lately with this whole productivity trend on tumblr and youtube, I feel sometimes like I have to wake up at 5am or 6am, like a lot of these people do,in order to get things done and start my day properly. Don’t get me wrong, waking up early is great and it does save you a lot of time, but it’s not essencial everyday - if maybe you were working late or you just slept in cause you were really tired/fatigued, just let it be, and then, like I said,  work with the hours you have. 

On that note: PRODUCTIVITY DOES NOT EQUAL HEALTH. Let that really sink in. You’re not a machine. You needing breaks and getting tired is what makes you human, so don’t judge those moments - and please, don’t advocate them either. Rest. And don’t ever feel guilty about it. 

Don’t advocate time for yourself. Always have a few hours each day to be in touch with yourself, to engage in some kind of spiritual/religious practice, or just meditate. Always have a day of the week where you can stop and digest everything that happened throughout the week, maybe write about it, journal, and a day dedicated to your next week, where you can get your shit together, clean the house, and do some planning. Which brings me to my next point: 

The failure of an assignment, relationship, or any other important goal can extremely disappointing, especially when you expected so much more for yourself. However, you cannot avoid failure unless you avoid doing anything at all. So instead of beating yourself up, there are ways for you to regain motivation and get back up on your feet after getting knocked down.

Accept what you’re feeling. I’m not saying that you should stay in bed, wallowing in self-pity for days. But you should take a moment and be angry or sad or whatever you feel after a loss. This will enable you to work through your feelings without lashing out on others or letting it distract you later. 

Remember that a few setbacks do NOT make you a failure. Everyone fails, okay? Do you know how many times J.K Rowling sent Harry Potter to publishers before getting published? 12 times. She failed 12 times before publishing what became one of the best novel series of all time. So instead of going into a self-hating spiral, remind yourself that just because you failed doesn’t mean that you won’t succeed the next time. See this failure as something temporary that will pass instead of a permanent roadblock

Address the cause of the failure. Ask yourself these questions: What caused this? Could it have been prevented? What can I do in the future to succeed? Were my initial expectations unrealistic? Take the time to think or write down about could have been done and what their consequences would have been.

Learn from this situation. Now, apply the behaviors you wrote down in the previous step. You want to get an A on your next test? Study smarter, take better notes, ask your teacher questions or even read this post I wrote. You want to get first place at your next swim meets? Practice, improve your diet, train outside of the pool. Whatever your goal is, implement ways in your weekly routine to achieve it.

Understand that some of your goals may be unrealistic. It’s important to work hard to attain your goals, but it’s also important to realize if your goal was too difficult to achieve. You can’t possibly get 100% on every single one of your tests or win every competition you enter. Knowing that there are some things that you may not achieve at the moment will prevent you from being disappointed.

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As someone who has been profoundly influenced by the cost of college in the US, I really wanted to help other people be better prepared than I was and make some dents in student debt. Having also gone to a public school without a fully developed counseling department, I missed out on a lot of info about scholarships and ways of paying for college. Additionally, I haven't seen much financial-aid based advice floating around the studyblr community and wanted to help fill that gap as well. 

The following is a compilation of information, sources, and general help that will maybe bridge that information gap for those who don’t necessarily have easy access to it. I’m afraid the guide is pretty US-based simply because that’s the only system I have experience with, but perhaps others will be willing to add on. So here you go!

A scholarship is free money. You don’t pay it back (unlike a loan), and it is gifted to you by an outside organization. There are tons of places to find them, and they can greatly help reduce your cost of college.

Every scholarship has its own requirements for applying, and may ask you to do something (write an essay, make a video, etc) in order to compete.

Need Based Scholarships:  You must demonstrate financing need to qualify for the scholarship. Usually, you’ll need to have filled out FAFSA and have an EFC (expected family contribution) lower than a certain number. 

Merit Scholarships: Merit scholarships are awarded to the participant who demonstrates the most merit, or worthiness. This can be due to academic success, an personal talent, volunteer work, or other qualities that make someone a great candidate. 

Both need and merit based scholarships may have additional requirements, such as only being open to people of certain genders, ethnicities, or backgrounds. 

- The internet! Its full of scholarships, seriously. And tons of sites curate them, so I’ve added an entire section on that below.

- Local Community: If you have a local Rotary or Lions Club branch, these organizations almost always have scholarships for local grads. You can also check with any other organizations such as the community center, other clubs/fraternal associations, or businesses. 

- At your job/your parents job: Parents work for a sizeable company? Many offer scholarships that are only open to the families of those employed.  They can ask the HR department, or you can look on the company website. Other companies offer tuition assistance or scholarships for employees (ex: Chick-Fil-A has a 2.5k employee-only scholarship), so you should check your own place of work too. 

- Career Center/Counselor: School counselors can get a bad rap, but they have tons of resources! Ask them if they have any scholarship info (they definitely will, they get sent this kind of stuff) if its not already posted in the room. 

- Your current school: This is for both high school students and college students. If you’re a high schooler, check with the PTA to see what they offer, and check what the school offers (again, ask the counselor!). They usually at least have something small, often for students nominated by the teachers. For college students, check the financial aid web page for your school. Many list scholarships the school has partnered with or promotes, as well as alumni scholarships (funds provided by past graduates for current students). 

- Your future school: Applying for college this year? Some schools will automatically send your application to relevant, school-sponsored scholarships for consideration, while others will require you to specifically choose this or to complete additional materials. Look this up early so you don’t miss any deadlines!

(I have personally used these websites and can vouch for them. However, I would love to add others as well so let me know!)

Fastweb - the OG scholarship website. Its literally just a huge list of lists of scholarships. Its not the prettiest website (or at least didnt use to be), or the easiest to sort through, but there is definitely plenty of opportunities. 

Chegg - A legitimate source of scholarships, although they tend to list very popular and very competitive ones. While these are, of course, worth a lot of money, you’ll want to make sure you’re very competitive before applying so you don’t waste time. 

Cappex - Yep, you have to sign up. But its totally worth it. Aside from having a really organized list (sort by amount, requirements, deadline, etc), they will also send emails to remind you of deadlines for apps you’ve started or scholarships your might qualify for. It will also help you look for colleges that fit your needs if you’re not sure where you want to go. 100% free. Highly recommend. 

GoingMerry - This one is really really new, and I only know about it bc my school counselor let us in on it. Its supposed to be kind of like a commonApp for scholarships. So far it shown itself to have a lot of smaller, individual scholarships rather than large popular ones which is really nice. (non ref link).

DoSomething - This organization makes monthly initiatives (ex: get friends to register to vote, run a canned goods drive) and if you participate you can submit an entry for a scholarship. There are about 5 campaigns per month and they usually pick winners randomly. They’ll email with you with new campaigns and winners regularly. Its a good way to impact your community and maybe get some money for it!

This is definitely not a comprehensive list, but it will certainly get you started!

Some final words:

1. NEVER pay for a scholarship service. Sites that do this (such as Scholly) are scams. A legitimate scholarship fund/website will never charge you to apply for or match to scholarships. 

2. Watch out for lottery scholarships where you have to sign up. Sites like Niche or Scholarship Points, etc will advertise that if you sign up you “could win a [insert large amount] scholarship”. In reality you’ll just get a lot of spam, since the entire thing is a lottery system and designed to increase their search engine rankings. 

3. Make sure you know what you’re applying for- a judged or a lottery type scholarship. The former means you’re actually competing based on your application, while the latter simply has basic qualifications and then you’re thrown into a drawing (aka much less likely to win anything for your efforts).

4. Found a lot of scholarships? Make an excel sheet of them if they’re on different sites. This will help you keep track of due dates, eligibility, prompts, etc. 

5. Don’t get discouraged! Apply to as many scholarships as possible. Free money is out there and while it may take you some time to win it, it is definitely attainable and you can do it!

Now go and get your free money!

If you found my notes useful, please reblog so that more people can see it! Happy studying!

Shaysstudies’ Google Drive

january 8th, 2018: day one

11.23.17