SAT Prep

Most of what I read was written by American & European students, and although I gained some insight into what my life would be like, I decided that it was time I put together some tips & resources tailored to South African students. My welcoming program was designed around helping us to get to know our campus (there was a huge emphasis placed on safety), encouraging us to be open to new experiences & giving us the opportunity to bond with the other people in my residence. The talk was given in the lounge of a really nice restaurant in town & it was attended mostly by business people, academic faculty & post-graduate students (& of course, me and my five first year friends). I feel like budgeting for food is probably the hardest part of budgeting - I don't have a proper kitchen, so I need my meals to use as few ingredients as possible, take as little time as possible, be at least a little bit healthy & fit within my budget.

I then use my notebooks as an outline for making study notes (I find that we often don't need to know all of the work under a chapter, & so having this outline prevents me from studying unnecessary content). The right-hand column is usually the largest column & is used for taking notes (these are the main ideas of the lecture which should be paraphrased in the interest of keeping notes brief), the left-hand column is about half the size of the right & is used for jotting down keywords & questions. When you get home from your last lecture of the day, I suggest quickly going through your notes & adding any information that you left out / touching up anything that you wrote down which you now realize doesn't make any sense, then file your notes in a way that you'll be able to find them a month from now when you're studying for a test. Although writing 4 exams in college is a substantially better than having to write 16 (like I did in high school), there is still a significantly larger quantity of work to cover & studying in college entails less 'parrot learning' and a lot more understanding of complex concepts & developing original ideas.

I then use my notebooks as an outline for making study notes (I find that we often don't need to know all of the work under a chapter, & so having this outline prevents me from studying unnecessary content). The right-hand column is usually the largest column & is used for taking notes (these are the main ideas of the lecture which should be paraphrased in the interest of keeping notes brief), the left-hand column is about half the size of the right & is used for jotting down keywords & questions. When you get home from your last lecture of the day, I suggest quickly going through your notes & adding any information that you left out / touching up anything that you wrote down which you now realize doesn't make any sense, then file your notes in a way that you'll be able to find them a month from now when you're studying for a test. Although writing 4 exams in college is a substantially better than having to write 16 (like I did in high school), there is still a significantly larger quantity of work to cover & studying in college entails less 'parrot learning' and a lot more understanding of complex concepts & developing original ideas.

I then use my notebooks as an outline for making study notes (I find that we often don't need to know all of the work under a chapter, & so having this outline prevents me from studying unnecessary content). When you get home from your last lecture of the day, I suggest quickly going through your notes & adding any information that you left out / touching up anything that you wrote down which you now realize doesn't make any sense, then file your notes in a way that you'll be able to find them a month from now when you're studying for a test. Although writing 4 exams in college is a substantially better than having to write 16 (like I did in high school), there is still a significantly larger quantity of work to cover & studying in college entails less 'parrot learning' and a lot more understanding of complex concepts & developing original ideas. I like to study in our campus library (something about that place makes me feel very productive & I have access to everything I need - resources, internet, printers etc.), however we aren't allowed to bring drinks other than water in & I really do prefer to study with my mug of tea.

Today, I am sharing ten items that I consider “must-haves” for every teacher’s classroom, whether you are going into your first year of teaching this coming fall or your twentieth, there is something on this list for everyone! My mom bought me the dry erase marker box and a couple of erasers from Lakeshore Learning prior to the school year. Teacher Toolbox – I got one of these for Christmas this last year and to be honest, I haven’t set it up I bought the cutest labels off of TPT for it and can’t wait to get it all set up for the new school year!

Today, I am sharing ten items that I consider “must-haves” for every teacher’s classroom, whether you are going into your first year of teaching this coming fall or your twentieth, there is something on this list for everyone! My mom bought me the dry erase marker box and a couple of erasers from Lakeshore Learning prior to the school year. Teacher Toolbox – I got one of these for Christmas this last year and to be honest, I haven’t set it up I bought the cutest labels off of TPT for it and can’t wait to get it all set up for the new school year!

Teaching others "a latte" tips and tricks to surviving the teaching profession. Seriously, everyone is so supportive and was a first-year teacher at some point in their career, don’t be afraid to reach out and vent to someone if you don’t have that support at your school or at home. For those that are #moreexperienced than I in the teaching field, what other tips would you give to someone about to embark on their first year of teaching? An elementary school teacher, who thrives on iced coffee and little minds, giving other teachers tips, tricks, and hacks to surviving the teaching profession.

Teaching others "a latte" tips and tricks to surviving the teaching profession. Seriously, everyone is so supportive and was a first-year teacher at some point in their career, don’t be afraid to reach out and vent to someone if you don’t have that support at your school or at home. For those that are #moreexperienced than I in the teaching field, what other tips would you give to someone about to embark on their first year of teaching? An elementary school teacher, who thrives on iced coffee and little minds, giving other teachers tips, tricks, and hacks to surviving the teaching profession.

The college admission season is winding down at this time of year except for this part: Parents are stressing about how they’re going to pay for the college that their children want to attend. Spring is when I hear from parents who are being guilted by their children to spend dangerously more than they should for a brand name research university

A little disclaimer: although I am incredibly proud of the results that I was able to achieve during my high school career, I feel that I need to explain that I was only able to achieve some of the things that I did because I significantly compromised my social life and although this paid off for me, it certainly isn't healthy and I missed out on much of what can make high school an incredibly special time of your life as a result of it... Use step 1 to plan - work out how much studying you need to get done over the weekend and how much time you need to spend on different elements of school work every day (projects, homework, essays and speeches are all things that you have to do outside of studying in order to be successful). When you get a result back, make an appointment with your teacher to discuss where you went wrong and what areas you can work on (this also tells your teacher that you're invested in your marks and may make them a little more sympathetic when you ask for the rare extension).Play the game - I have very mixed feelings about this tip because it goes against everything I believe about education, but unfortunately the South African education system (and most others) are not ideally designed to encourage critical thinking & sometimes the syllabus is simply just too big to be able to obtain in depth understandings of every topic. To all of my amazing readers who are writing matric any time soon - good luck & happy studying!Also, I'd love to hear what you think of this blog post and my little list of tips of acing matric - please feel free to comment below and share any tips and tricks that you may have come across!