5 Studying Don’ts for Commuters

Posted on February 25, 2019
by Kayla Adam

I know that feeling of commuting home from a long day’s work or classes and just wanting to go home after and grab your laptop and hopping on the couch to relax. But does this really help you learn or even bring motivation, while going to college?? I think not!! Such as this example, which was a HUGE distraction for me. So, I’m sharing these 5 Studying Don’ts and I also provided some handy tips that have worked for me throughout each semester. I’d like to share these tips to help you get much closer to become an awesome and educated student. The better my grades are, the more opportunities I have ever had before.

Here we go … 🙂

1. Don’t get too comfy on the couch and set yourself up an ‘office’ with as close as you can get ‘desk’, and this helps with getting rid of distractions. Or put a desk in your room where there is a door you can close for a certain period of time you planned for school.

2. Don’t dehydrate yourself and drink LOTS OF WATER. This can help you feel focused and refreshed, as staying hydrated is very important for every student to keep their brain strong to obtain a lot of information. Put a lemon in your water, if plain water is getting too boring to drink after a while.

3. Don’t think your life sucks right now (ha-ha) because it will all be all worth it when you receive that diploma, in the end. I will talk myself into how having good grades could potentially help me in my future. I think most jobs know that a lot of young adults have their degree, but not all have really good grades and that takes determination from the student.

4. Don’t eat junk food or eat too late at time. A way to not binge eat at night is by going TO BED at a decent hour. You should reward yourself with a ‘sweet treat’ when you complete a planned study or assignment.

5. Don’t cram your work and try harder when it comes to planning and time-management for studying and assignments, etc. It’s important to be organized and to divide up the school work between the days of the week, and maybe even on Sunday nights. It won’t be like this forever and if I can do it then you can do it!!!

I never found myself going to the library unless it was to get together with the groups from my classes, for the project we have to complete together. Places where there are a lot of people, seems to be distracting for me. So, at home I have found that using a ‘HUGE’ desk calendar has saved me!! Also, having the option in my house to have an office with a desk. This room is separate from the rest of the house and has NO DISTRACTIONS. When I get in there, I am in the zone and can focus, kind of like when I am at work! If you don’t have this option then choose an area where you can’t hear sounds that much in your place. There is the option of going to Penfield library, which is huge and has computer labs and printer access, etc.

Good luck with your studies Lakers. Comment below if you find any of these to be interesting, if any have worked for you or if you have certain tips of your own that you have found very useful as a commuter.

Adjustments: Moving Back Home

Posted on May 7, 2017
by Kristen Beyer

“Hey, wanna go grab ice cream?” This was the question I asked my best friend Alexandra on the second day I moved back home last year. She was hanging out at my house, so we got in my car and got our chilly desserts. Approximately 10-15 minutes, I got the text. You know, the quintessential parent to child text that strikes fear in your heart.

After getting used to the autonomy of college, I realized that I had to tell my mom my location. I told my mother and she was fine with it, but it was a wake-up call. Yeah, in college I might mention that I was grabbing dinner with friends, but the task isn’t compulsory. I realized I would have to make a key adjustment moving back home.

It’s easy to forget when you experience the kind of big lifestyle change that college provides. It is often the first big stepping stone for many and is their first taste of living on their own. The biggest recommendation I have is talking things out with your parents and understanding their expectations for you. I definitely live under a certain set of rules, but my personal growth in college has an impact as well. I have more freedom than I did in high school, but I still need to respect my parents as well.

College is certainly a great experience, but that doesn’t mean going home for the summer can’t be great, too.

Person you were and the person you’re becoming.

Posted on September 19, 2010
by Jay

I guess this is the part where I give a cliché moment of describing myself? Alright well, my name is Joe, but I have been called Jay for years so I prefer it over my actual name. I’m not really from the Bronx. But I’ll explain; I was born in White Plains, raised in Yonkers, but I feel like I grew into the person I am today in the Bronx with my four years of high school at Mount Saint Michael Academy. The only other facts about myself that I can give is that I am Straight Edge (I abstain from alcohol, drugs and smoking), Vegan (do not eat or use any product tested, or made from an animal), I love seeing and getting tattoos and I am an activist in both animal and gay rights. I believe firmly that animals should never be abused and ones sexual preferences shouldn’t be judged in a negative light.

Now onto my blog, I could’ve wrote something about how I am homesick (which I am not yet) or about how I miss the girl back home, but I decided to ask and try to answer a question I once asked myself 2 years ago and answered before I left for Oswego.

After being accepted to Oswego State, I kept wondering what the future was going to hold. Formerly being at Westchester Community College, I established myself around the campus, amongst the student body and the faculty as a driven, hard working person who wanted better for himself and those around him. For example, WARY 88.1 was the radio station I was on. It quite possibly have been one of the biggest turning points in my entire collegiate career. I didn’t join because a love for radio, rather for a place to hangout and meet new people. After a month of being there, I switched my major from journalism to broadcasting and I had an opportunity to set myself to become something with something I became passionate about.

I remember reading a few blog entries on here for people whom interned down in Manhattan. Reading their blogs, it seemed that they thought that the city was the best place on the planet. Granted, it’s a place with a lot of opportunities, but it can also be someone’s biggest downfall. Not to sound negative, but fact is, some people get so caught up with working in Manhattan, they lose sight of why they first were there. I certainly had that advantage (being 15-20 minutes away) when I had the opportunity to intern at Sirius XM Satellite Radio under the king of all media; Howard Stern, to not be distracted by the “New Yorker attitude“ since I already had one. To this day, the internship still stands as the biggest highlight of my life. I mean imagine this for a second. You come into work, and you share the elevator (although it’s at 4am) with either Robin Quivers or Fred Norris, as you walk through the Sirius lobby, and into (what they called) the Stern compound and walk to a section strictly for the interns and work side by side with Gary “BaBa Booey” Dell’Abate. It’s definitely one of the most overwhelming experiences in the first week of work.

Going from journalism to broadcasting as a major, then in less than a year, you intern for the biggest name in the business, just shows how determined I am to make it in this business. I helped bring more attention to the broadcasting and communications departments at my school through my hard work and I hope to leave behind a good ethic for those to someday follow in and do something great.

Through this brief history of myself, it brings me to the point I wanted to make in my blog. At WCC, I was one of the well known students. People knew me by first and last name and the good reputation that followed. I’ve given speeches to prospective students, taught students how to work the on-air studio at WARY, trained them on Adobe Audition, interned for Stern, and doing all this while maintaining a 3.5 GPA. To some this is easy, to me, being someone who had no intent of even going to college in high school, this is a BIG deal. I showed to myself that if I put my mind to something, I can accomplish it.
Now you may be asking, where is he going with this? Well, at my old school, I was somebody, now onto Oswego, I am at square one all over again. Oswego has given me a fresh start, something I wanted since January 2010 when I was accepted to the school. But now that I am here, I feel like this fresh start may not be as beneficial as I thought.

I come into WNYO, and they do things completely different than they did down at WARY. But unlike most people, I like the challenge, and more importantly, I like to learn about my new environment because then, I can do for WNYO what I did for WARY and help try to make this program even better than what it was. However, the question still linger in my mind, what am I going to do to make a name for myself here? I’m aiming to getting good grades, aiming to bring WNYO up to that “next level” and become a Zeta Beta Tau brother and help bring a great fraternity to that next level as well.

So far my first few weeks here have been pretty eventful with joining WNYO, Rush Week with ZBT and just getting used to my new environment. Next blog, I hope I’ll be talking about what it’s like to try and join a frat, but until then I leave you with a quote that I got from a fortune cookie at Wonton House:

“Not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching one.”

Thanksgiving ’09

Posted on November 22, 2009
by Christopher

So, this weekend has been pretty productive, and that is one reason why I love weekends that precede breaks. Since I know that it is my last weekend before the break, I try my hardest to get everything done that I possibly can so that I don’t have to do work over break, and my weekend is therefore very productive. I really enjoy getting work done, especially when you have a list in front of you, and the more you work, the smaller that list gets. It’s simply an amazing feeling. Obviously, coming up this week is the very reason why we don’t have class, which is Thanksgiving, and so, I figured that, more than anything, it would be appropriate to write a blog pertaining to that for which I am thankful.

Firstly, I am thankful for my relationship. I am sure that I have mentioned it in previous blog entries, but my relationship is soon to be eight months long, and I have never in my lifetime been happier. For once, it feels like I have found the person that I am supposed to be with, the one person who I am going to spend my entire life with and who I ultimately was always meant and destined to be with, and that is an amazing feeling, that knowledge. So, I am definitely thankful for that.

Secondly, I am thankful for my friends. Without them, I don’t know how I would get by. They don’t even need to know that I am experiencing a difficult situation. Just being with them and spending time with them helps me through, and I have some friends now that I never could have even dreamed of having, friends who understand me and friends who I can say anything to, and they’re not going to judge me, because they are my friends and because they are just good people.

I think that the final part of my life that I want to talk about, something that I am thankful for, is the very fact that I am sitting in a dorm room right now writing this blog entry. Not everyone who wants to go to college has the opportunity to, and that is something that I am well aware of, something that I don’t ever take for granted or forget. I am here not only because I took the initiative and the effort to be here and because I worked hard to be here but also because I was lucky enough to have received such a generous financial aid award. Without there, I would not be here right now pursuing my dreams, so that is also something for which I am most definitely thankful.

As far as the holiday itself, I will most likely be doing what I always do every year. We don’t cook but instead go to the Beeches Inn which isn’t that far away from my house. We go there every year, usually between noon and 1 p.m. with an afore-made reservation, and it’s usually a good experience. I know that some of you may be thinking that I have been deprived of enjoying a home-cooked meal, since that is something that you most likely have the privilege of enjoying, but every family’s tradition is different. Besides, I don’t feel deprived of anything. If anything, I feel privileged myself, because home-cooked meals at my house call for days upon days of leftovers, and we do have a home-cooked meal on Christmas.

I am really looking forward to going home, seeing my boyfriend and spending time with friends. Trust me, as I think a lot of us do, I really need this break. I know some students, such as my roommate, who haven’t been home at all so far this semester, and I don’t know how anyone could do that. I would most definitely go crazy. Anyway, I am so happy that there are only two days of classes this week. I will be leaving Wednesday morning and will try to write a blog before then. If something interesting happens in my life prior to Wednesday morning, then I will try to write about that. Otherwise, maybe I will write a review or something. I recall Julie-Jo suggesting last year that we try to mix up or blog entries to incorporate different subjects, and I often do the best that I can to follow that advice.