#snowdaystudying

august 14th 2018

working on some research sources for my honors biology project - 3 down, 7 to go!!

hello there! it’s my first official day of break, so here’s some ideas:

things to do for summer break

first I wanna start off with more fun, hobby stuff and move into more scholarly activities later

local events

though my area is super duper boring, a 15-minute bike ride east and a 20-minute walk south brought me to some of the coolest parts of town. check out those weird billboards they have in ice cream shops or look up “things to do near me” and I guarantee you’ll at least find a couple of options to do for the day (I found out there was a dinosaur-themed park about an hour from my house and you can bet your butt I went there asap). ESPECIALLY in summer, some areas have tons of music or culture festivals (pride, anybody?) so be sure to look for not just your city, but ones surrounding it too!

work out

okay, now I’m not saying get super into cross-fit or anything, but if you have a bike you never use or even just a lovely park near you, maybe trying out something new like that would be engaging? I brought my skateboard outside last year and promised myself I’d learn how to skate, I did a daily 10-minute practice and eventually just starting going further than a meter or two, it acted like a great break between what I was doing in the day. If you don’t have any equipment, a lot of people have paths near their homes they just never go on (I’m not saying the creepy secluded kind), but even just doing a daily walk/jog gets you out and about, soaking up the sun (or snow if you’re in australia???) and can help you to clear your mind. (some local community centers also have free sports clinics if you wanna try them out!)

new hobbies

never forget when I ironically picked up a ukulele from a sale for cheap and bought it for giggles and then ended up spending nearly an hour a day playing with it… new hobbies don’t have to be instruments or sports, but here’s a list of tons of hobbies you could try out to pass the time. a lot of people collect things as a hobby too, so maybe you can pick tons of flowers and press them to use for your art or bujo! Let’s not forget arts and crafts: knitting, painting, etc. these are not only great for relaxing/multitasking, but you get a product in the end! maybe even ask your parents to teach you a thing or two if they’re super into their own hobbies

books!

not to be a dork, but summer is the perfect time to get back on your reading habits. since no teacher is telling you what you can or can’t read, go ahead and indulge a little (go read those sappy vampire lover stories you’ve been secretly curious about). try a new style or author to go out of your comfort zone, you may be surprised that sci-fi is your fav genre of all time. (also, I’m not saying complete it, but if you wanna read, but are brain-dead from your calc class, look at the rory gilmore reading challenge!)

learn a language

now obviously you can’t become a master of every romance language in the span of three months, but you CAN at least tackle the basics of them. there’s enough resources about how to start a language on this site that I’ll just leave you to the langblr community (*cough* or my langblr tag *cough*) for posts about that. opening your language barrier is such a cool and helpful experience, that I def recommend it to anyone curious enough. Everyone on here’s gonna recommend it anyway, but duolingo has helped me SO MUCH in trying to learn every possible language in human existence, but I suggest their website version actually since under each lesson they have notes on grammar and more physical lessons on how to not goof up when learning whatever you’re learning.

(also don’t forget to do your summer assignments if you have any!!!)

alrighty, that about wraps things up, hopefully this helps a bit!

I am so sorry this took me so long to get to, I’m currently in the middle of training for one of my jobs at school and the days are just sooo long. but these are really great questions and it’s awesome that you’re thinking about this now!

Safety schools are a tricky thing, and it really depends on where you apply, what you’re looking to major in, and other factors like that.

I got into every school I applied to, from my first choice to my safety. But my first choice was a big school, and I had a good GPA, and my safety was a state university that’s pretty desperate to get their enrollment up. (I’m currently attending my safety, and I love it a lot, so don’t knock safety schools too much.)

I know people who didn’t get into their safety, because their safety was an Ivy League like their top choice, and they didn’t consider enrollment percentages or things like that when they applied.

I also have a friend who got into a school with a very low enrollment percentage with a good (but not great) GPA because she applied for a degree that doesn’t see a lot of activity. So unfortunately it really can be super circumstantial. 

A true safety school should be a place that has your major of choice, a high enrollment percentage, and a GPA requirement you know you meet. If you’re nervous about getting into your safety, it’s not really a safety. Community colleges make excellent safety schools, can save you money, and definitely have a bad rep that they don’t deserve. I will continue to wish I had gotten my associates at a community college before going for my bachelor’s. It would have saved me a lot of headache. 

Think about what you like. Don’t apply for a safety school(s) you don’t want to go to. Don’t apply to schools with huge student bodies if you aren’t a fan of crowds. Talk to admissions and advisors and the orientation staff and get a feel for the environment of the school. There’s still a part of me that’s disappointed in attending a school with D2 sports because I miss the hype of a well attended football game. 

For me, I think it would be feasible if it’s a job that doesn’t take up very much of your time, OR if you don’t do much by way of extracurriculars (assuming that the IB class workload is fairly similar to the AP workload).

To give you some context, I did 5 AP classes both last year (bio, psych, english lit, spanish lit, stats) and the year before (gov, calc ab, latin, english lang, spanish lang) and and two very time intensive extracurriculars (debate and band). I also tutored, which pays well but doesn’t have many hours.

My grades were mostly As and A minuses (except a B in calc :D) and I got 5s on all the exams except Latin (4) and calc (3– see the pattern here?), so the good grades part seems covered!

If I hadn’t done debate (which is maybe 25 hours/week with practice, research, case writing, mock rounds, coaching, and tournaments), I think I definitely could have picked up a more traditional job.

In summary: it really depends on how you work/what the classes are/what the job is/how many extracurriculars you have, etc.