#student world

Problems May Include, But are Not Limited to:

Disorganization/feeling overwhelmed

Eating right and staying healthy

Failing to manage money

Failing to network

Homesickness

Not resolving relationship issues

Poor grades/not studying or reading enough

Poor sleep habits

Skipping classes

Wasting time/procrastinating

Interventions:

The following tips are for students to help themselves avoid some of the negative affects of these problems. While these issues are certainly not exhaustive, many college students will be affected by a number of them during their college experience.

Reducing feelings of homesickness may be difficult for some but may be accomplished by remaining on campus during the week and on weekends. This may help students to get to know their campus and become more involved in athletic and social events. Students learn more about campus resources and make friends with other students, with whom they may find common ground. Stay in touch with those back home through phone, mail and email but force yourself to become part of the culture within your new academic world.

Eating right and staying healthy will help you accomplish your academic goals and make your college experience much more fun. Get enough exercise and monitor the amount and quality of your food and drink consumption. This will increase the odds of staying physically and mentally healthy.

Poor sleep habits will leave you ineffective in your work and play as a college student. Take this challenge and read a current study related to the need for sleep and the effects of sleep deprivation on our health, both our physical and mental health.

Unresolved relationship problems commonly cause bitterness, resentment and anger. Any of these feelings can cause us to loose focus of the goals we are attempting to achieve. Even if we must move, separate or even just “agree to disagree,” successful attempts at relational conflict resolution are necessary in each of our lives.

While the temptation to skip classes may be high at times, you are spending your money to gather information given during class times. When you are not there, you are not receiving the benefit of the instruction as well as information regarding grading, future assignments, and opportunities outside the classroom of which you may want to take advantage. You may also be failing to spend time with professors and classmates who may, upon graduation, become part of a valuable network for you. This takes us into problem six.

When we do not get to know and spend time with classmates, professors and other academic advisors, we lack support and a place to go for ideas and answers when a problem does arise. Practical experience and internship opportunities should always be taken advantage of, in order to provide maximum networking opportunities for students.

Know what your resources are and develop an appropriate spending plan. Seek the advice of a financial planner or counselor. Don’t spend money unnecessarily or borrow money that may be difficult or even impossible to repay. Only the federal government can do that. Be careful about being drawn into credit card opportunities offered to college students. “Easy cash” is never easy and may also come with high interest rates.

Facing considerably more freedom than the high school years, coupled with a lack of accountability it becomes easy to fall short of completing the necessary reading and studying to increase your odds of academic success in college. Failure to dedicate the appropriate time to studying and reading is likely to have a negative impact on grades. Some ideas to increase your odds of success are to be in class, every class if possible, be accountable to others for you academic performance, know each course, the syllabi, the requirements and the professor along with his/her expectations.

While college is a social as well as an academic experience, these must be balanced in order to maximize success in both areas. Procrastinating may have been an acceptable exercise in high school but will likely become problematic in college. While getting to know other students/faculty, establish deadlines for assignments that minimize your stress level.

In as much as college is a time when many people feel overwhelmed with the requirements of life, don’t let this go on for long. Consider seeing a professional counselor to help you organize, prioritize and better manage the demands being placed upon you.

What is student life like?

Being a student is fun, but it does have its down side. For most students it is the first time that they have left home and is therefore somewhat disconcerting. The realization that there is now no mechanism around to take dirty smelly clothes and magically transform them into clean ones is a horrible one. There is also the feeling that nobody at university particularly cares about you, or how you are doing. This is not true; courses come complete with a whole bunch of people who are there to provide support.

SUPPORT

Every institution will have a support infrastructure to help you to get the best from your student life. It is important that you identify these folks. They might be called tutors or supervisors.  At Hull we have supervisors backed up by a Student Success Adviser and a Disabilities Tutor.

The supervisor is your academic support person. They are a useful weapon of first resort if you have problems with your course or any aspect of student life. It is important that you get on well with your supervisor, laugh at his or her jokes, pay regular visits etc; one day he or she may have to tell a sceptical staff meeting that the reason you failed your exam was that a giant magpie flew off with your revision notes.The supervisor is also the person you will want to write a glowing reference for you when you apply for jobs after graduation.

You get to meet your supervisor on the very first day of your course, and keep in touch for the rest of your stay in the university. If you have any questions about how life is lived, or university procedure, ask your supervisor first. They may not know the answer, but they will certainly know someone who might.

At Hull we also have a  Student Success Adviser. Emily can give you advice on directions to travel if you are having problems. She makes call to each of our students when they join the department and can provide great advice on the best way to do well in the university.

One of the more interesting things about joining a university is that a whole new set of eyes will be seeing you at work. This means that at Hull we frequently pick up on issues such as dispraxia which might have passed unnoticed until students come to study at university. We have a Disabilities Tutor who is very experienced in spotting these issues and suggesting suitable support.

None of our support staff will actually admit to wearing vests with a big "S" on underneath their shirts, but they have been known to do some pretty superhuman things for their students.

MONEY

One of the big problems with being a student is that you have almost no money. Financially, the student's lot has got much harder over the years. However, living at university does not have to be expensive; the on-site catering does good food at reasonable prices, and university accommodation represents pretty good value.

Although you are poor, so is just about everybody else you know, and the Union Main Bar seems to do a pretty good trade most nights. All of which brings me to my favourite student joke, which appeared on a computer system in this department :

Q: What's green and takes a week to drink? A: Your student loan cheque....

If you have money problems tell your supervisor. It is unlikely that he or she will immediately produce a wad of notes, but they do know who to put you in touch with, and anything which may have a bearing on how you perform academically is something you should tell your supervisor about.

WORKLOAD

The workload can be pretty daunting at first, until you find a rhythm. There's a kind of "calm before the storm" when you arrive, as for the first few weeks you won't have much work assigned to you. However, on most courses that changes pretty quickly a few weeks in when the first courseworks land (usually around the time that you run out of clean underwear....). Be prepared for this, and make sure that you take advice as soon as you feel that you might be losing touch with the pace.

At Hull we have "Peer Assisted Student Study" sessions which are run by third and fourth year students who are there to give you help getting through the content. They've "been there" and survived the experience. The are a great place to find out the best wasy to cope. The good news is that after a while you will find that the work will settle down (and you might even find a launderette to do you clothes - or just go home with a huge bag of washing...).

One pro tip is to check on the description for the courses that you are doing and find out just when work will be dished out and is due in. At Hull we have a timetable just for this, so students can plan their social life around your workload.

THE SOCIAL WHIRL

Everyone should have a social life. Even Computer Scientists. At the start of your university life you will get to go to some kind of "Fresher's Fair" where all the various student societies tell you what they get up to and encourage you to join in. It might be best not to sign up for everything, but it might be fun to have a go at something you have never done before. Particularly if it takes you right out of your comfort zone. Things involving public speaking, such as debating, are a great way to brush up your presentation skills and make friends with people on courses completely different from yours.

THE STUDENT LIFE

The world is moving fast in the field of technology and children’s futures are also determined by their ability to master the basics of reading, science, math and computers skills. However, it is not always easy for children to access quality online learning stuff that can support and reinforce these essential skills. Knowing the right website for this can be a great help.

The website e-learning for kids provides kids with fun-filled colourful animated lessons and infographics in a variety of topics that kids and their parents will like to get engaged with.

E-learning for kids is a global, non-profit foundation dedicated to fun and free learning on the internet for children ages five to 12.

The site doesn’t require any registration so users can start from the main menu which is on the top centre, with categories math, science, environmental skills, computer skills, health, language arts and life skills, all having a variety of interesting categories and clicking any will open the lessons in it sorted by popularity and grade level, from kindergarten through sixth grade.

On selecting a lesson, visitors are guided through the lesson with visual and audio prompts.

Each topic includes animated lessons, with most having a reinforcement activity to help kids apply and retain what they learned. For instance, in “Life skills” if you open “Bullying”, a user is told what bullying is all about, then an infographic or animation tells its types, provide one with tips on how to avoid it and gives out further understanding to the topic all in colourful animation or infographic. There’s a lot of positive encouragement and helpful feedback, and most lessons in the lower grades have audio support for little kids.

Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and St. Clare’s mark their 70th and 75th anniversary this year. Here’s a look at the series.

For 70 to 75 years, children over the world have indulged themselves in the life in English boarding schools. A far cry from Tom Brown’s School Days, Malory Towers and St. Clare’s took us into a world that was at once joyful and fantastic. All the girls loved school, and those who initially did not, soon grew to love it. These stories were given to us by Enid Blyton, a master storyteller who knew how to capture the interest and imagination of the young.

Twins at St. Clare’s

When asked whether she had a plan for her stories, Blyton said, that she simply allowed her imagination to take her from the beginning of the book to the final scene. In the days when she wrote there was no computer. So, she wrote with her typewriter perched on her lap. She was able to write 10,000 words of publishable story in one day!

In 1941, Enid Blyton began her school series starring twins at a boarding school called St. Clare’s. A series of six books, with never a dull moment. The first three revolve around life in the first form. The rest take you through the second, fourth and fifth forms.

Patricia and Isabel O’Sullivan have just finished school at the elite Redroofs. They have to move to senior school and their parents are reluctant to send them to yet another expensive school — Ringmere, where most of their classmates are headed. The parents fear the twins might end up being too snooty and spoilt. So, they choose to send them to St. Clare’s, which they describe as “a very sensible sort of school”. Furious at having to go to St. Clare’s and not Ringmere, the two of them are determined to be impossible. At St. Clare’s, they find nothing meets their mark and even on the sports field they find, horror of horrors! Only lacrosse is played. No field hockey and no tennis!

But, despite their vow to be difficult and unhappy in their new school, they have fun and make friends. There are other girls who make their appearance in the first book — Alison O’Sullivan (the twins cousin), Hilary Wentworth, Carlotta Brown, who was with the circus, Kitty Flaherty, who brings her pet goat, McGinty to school, The Honourable Angela Favorleigh and more.

The Headmistress, Miss Theobald believes that people get out of life what they put into it, telling her pupils: “Do your best for us and St. Clare’s will be able to do its best for you!”

Tricks and jokes, midnight feasts, sports matches, thrilling rescues, fun and friendship are all a part of life at school — but so are hard work, exams, problems, tempers, meanness and snootiness.

Though the books were written between 1941 and 1945, Blyton made it a point not to mention the war. It was as if she wanted to forget the dreadfulness of the situation and give the children a make believe world where everything was pleasant and happy. During the war there was severe rationing of food items, but Blyton did not stint on the food laid out at the midnight feast. From potted meat, hardboiled eggs and prawns to jam tarts, pickled onions and pineapple chunks, she laid it on thick.

Life at school

Seventy years ago, 12-year-old Darrell Rivers packed her bags and went to a boarding school known as Malory Towers, in Cornwall, England. As was the tradition at the school, all the new girls are taken to meet the head of the school — Miss Grayling. The head tells the new girls that in Malory Towers girls are considered a success when they have become “dependable, loving and prove to be women useful to society”.

The six books in the series take you through the school life of Darrell Rivers. Blyton began the series in 1946, bringing out a book every year till 1951 when Darrell leaves the school.

Darrell is impressed with Miss Grayling’s words and is determined to be a “success”. But then she gets friendly with Alicia Johns and gets side tracked. Alicia is a naughty one, and Darrell is taken up with playing pranks and fooling around, not paying much attention to her studies. Also, she has a violent, uncontrollable temper that gets into a trouble more than once! There are the usual spattering of nasty girls, snobbish ones — like Gwen, and meek and timid like Mary-Lou.

Events take a turn when Darrell is the cause of Sally Hope’s sudden hospitalisation requiring surgery. Regret and a wish to curb her temper and make amends bring the two together forming a firm friendship that takes them through their school years.

With every passing term, we see changes in Darrell’s behaviour. She becomes more responsible and caring and in her final year she becomes the head girl. When she takes the new girls to meet Miss Grayling, and the head gives her usual speech, Darrell is overwhelmed when she hears her name mentioned as one of the successes.

Darrell and her friend Sally Hope leave Malory Towers with wonderful memories. They are both bound for the University of St. Andrews. Darrell hopes to become a writer some day. Meanwhile, snobbish Gwen who had been lauding it over everyone about attending an expensive finishing school in Switzerland is in for a shock. Her father takes ill and Gwen has to leave Malory Towers. She is frightened and in tears, and does not return. Much later, Darrell receives a letter from her saying that her father was slowly recovering and she was considering taking up a job in an office. In the world of Enid Blyton, “taking up a job in an office” means things have become really bad!

Darrell’s younger sister Felicity also joins Malory Towers when Darrell is in her fourth.

However, as in all her books, Blyton could not resist the stereotype. So, in the St. Clare’s series we have Carlotta, the circus girl who is a “wild foreigner” who knows a language other than English. She is described as being “untidy with no manners at all”. The French mistresses in both Malory Towers and St. Clare’s had their quirks. Americans were thrown in for good measure — rich, flamboyant, pushy. But for all that, Blyton romanticised the idea of boarding school, creating in young girls a longing to be a part of this great adventure.

She died in 1968 at the age of 71. Despite the brickbats and criticisms of her work, Blyton continues to be popular — educating, entertaining and inspiring. Through her writing she encourages her readers to observe everything around them, explore and investigate, discover and learn.

Pamela Cox has valiantly tried her hand at continuing the Malory Towers and St. Clare’s series.

Look out for:

Naughtiest Girl series

The Adventurous Four

Famous Five

Secret Seven

Mr. Galliano’s Circus

The Children of Cherry Tree Farm

Family at Red Roofs

Enjoy a mix of royalty, friendly giants, scraggy dogs and even the wild things.

Summer is here. And how! When soaring temperatures chase us back to the comforts of our rooms, what do we do to keep ourselves from boredom? No, don’t look at the television. Instead, take a look at your bookshelf. Have you read the books there? In that case, go take a peek at you brother or sister’s bookcase (when they’re in a good mood, of course), or better yet — make a quick stop at the library to pick out some awesome books.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

This book is apt for our younger readers. Little Max is wreaking havoc in his house as he runs around dressed in a wolf costume, chasing the dog, annoying his mother and generally being a ‘wild thing’. This forces Max’s mother to send him to bed without dinner. But the story doesn’t end there. A forest grows in Max’s bedroom and he sets off to a magical place inhabited by the “wild things”. Max has the time of his life here, but will he eventually make it back home?

The BFG by Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl’s The BFG, as some of you might be aware, is being made into an animated movie by Steven Spielberg. And that is why the book makes its way into this list. You would want to read the book before you watch the movie, right? BFG stands for Big Friendly Giant, as Sophie finds out one night when the giant blows dreams into children’s bedrooms. Sophie accompanies the giant to his country where she is about to have an adventure of a lifetime.

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Opal is lonely and it doesn’t help her cause when her father moves to a town in Florida, where she knows no one. But a visit to the local Winn-Dixie store changes all that as she befriends a dog and brings it home. What Opal is yet to realise is that the dog, named Winn-Dixie, could be more than an animal companion to her as she discovers interesting people and places she never thought she would.

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

For every student, the best part of the year is the summer vacation. Every year, my family and I plan a trip and explore new places. This year too, we have planned for a houseboat trip in Kerala.

Usually, after the trip, I join summer classes for dance or swimming. But this year, I am planning to visit an orphanage or old-age home.

I was upset about the December floods in Tamil Nadu and was impressed by the way people helped each other in the hour of need. This has motivated me to meet old people or orphans and serve them.

This vacation is a good time to have more time to engage in social activities and I am sure these holidays will be different from the others I’ve had so far. I am eagerly looking forward to spending my vacation in serving the needy.

For Mathew Jose, recycling comes naturally. His efficient network of kabadiwallas in Chenna,i help him do his bit for the environment.

How many times have you been told to Reuse and Recycle?

For Mathew Jose, it comes naturally. He was featured in the Forbes 30 under 30, earlier this year. Why? Because, Paperman, an NGO that he runs, campaigns for efficient waste management.

It is a common sight to see raddiwalas, kabadiwalas or the scrap collector coming home to buy old newspapers and magazines. For most of us, it is the money that was important — it means a couple of ice creams on a hot day or our favourite toffees. Little did we know that the raddiwalas play an instrumental role in pushing society towards recycling.

Today, Paperman is on the scene. This NGO has created an organised system where its members train scrap collectors across the city and act as a connecting point between customers looking to recycle, and the recyclers. When customers call the Paperman hotline, a scrap collector goes to the house within 48 hours and makes the collection for money.

Changing face of scrap

After his graduation from Madras Christian College, Tambaram, Jose worked with his mentor MB Nirmal at ExNoRa (Excellent Novel Radical) International.

“It was here that I learnt about the environment and ways to protect it. I also had the opportunity to observe the routine of kabadiwallas and how they recycled four tonnes of waste every month.”

He then worked his way around the city, found and profiled scrap collectors to further understand what they did. The idea of recycling coupled with his interest led to the establishment of Paperman in 2010.

In an interview, Jose explains how, through Paperman, they have introduced trash funding systems which enable customers to donate their paper and plastic to an NGO of their choice, instead of selling it. “The NGOs use this to raise funds.”

“Our main goal is to strengthen the network of kabadiwallas making them more visible and connecting them,” he adds.