Category Archives: USC

Adult Responsibilities, Advice, college, Outlook, USC

Structuring Your Time When Working From Home

By Natalie Grace Sipula


            We’ve all been there. You sit on your bed or your couch, pajamas on, ten tabs open on your computer. You stare at your screen with the full intention of knocking out five hours of solid work. You type a few words of your first assignment, then notice an email notification pop up on the side of your screen. It catches your eye enough to make you click on it. Suddenly, you are inundated with emails from teachers and coworkers and notice an email to an online shopping website. You start scrolling, checking texts, and taking snack breaks and glance at the clock to see that three hours have passed.

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Language, Outlook, USC

Fun and Interesting Ways to Practice a Language

By Alexis Bradby

When I was a Conversation Partner, and I quickly learned that there are a ton of ways to practice a language that people do not normally utilize. Some of the more common ways we think of practicing a language are to watch movies or television in the language we are learning or just speaking with a native speaker. While these methods are productive, I’m going to suggest a few fun and innovative ways I’ve been helping my conversation partners practice English this semester.

Reading scripts

One of my conversation partners has mentioned that she wanted to be able to sound more casual and less formal in how she speaks English. As a film student, I thought one way to help her work on this is from reading aloud dialogue. This allows her to see the sentence structure and practice different tones, such as sarcasm. It’s also a really fun activity for both partners depending on what screenplay you use. For our first time doing this activity, we read parts of Mean Girls.

Debates

Formulating analysis for arguments is one of the most difficult aspects of language even for native speakers, so this is a really great way to practice a language. A fun way of approaching this activity is to find common arguments online such as school uniforms. Then have your conversation partner argue in favor of and then in opposition of the prompt. This activity will help in making more complex sentence structures and expressing ideas quicker.

Comedy

While I’ve yet to get a conversation partner to agree to this, I think understanding humor In a different language is an indicator of a certain level of mastery. Learning puns is a great way for understanding the multiple meanings of words. To understand why something is fun shows a knowledge of sentence structure, word meaning, and a lot of times, cultural awareness.

Featured image by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Alexis majored in Narrative Studies.  She was born and raised in Chicago, and was a transfer student to USC.  Alexis loves the beach and at times misses Chicago, but is happy to now live in L.A. next to the ocean instead of a lake!  As a learner of Spanish and German herself, she understands the many challenges that come with speaking a foreign language.  Alexis has a passion for experiencing and sharing different cultures, and dreams of one day traveling the world.  She a Leo loves reading, writing, swimming, and looking at cute pictures of dogs.

Advice, college, health, New Experience, Outlook, USC

Discovering the Source of My Procrastination

By Sarah Ta

Like many college students, I struggle with procrastination. As I advance through college, I’ve gotten better at completing my work, but it’s always at the last minute. The process of completing assignments right before the deadline causes me an unnecessary amount of stress. This lack of motivation started in my junior year of high school and originally, I thought I was just burnt out from school. I kept telling myself that it’d get better once AP testing was over, but then summer came and I was still in a weird slump. I still had no motivation to do anything, and honestly, I haven’t since. 

For the past three years of my college career, I’ve barely been able to scrape by– often narrowly missing deadlines and sometimes completely missing them. I’ve tried everything I could to figure out why, but it’s been a journey. In my sophomore year, I tried going to short-term therapy at the Engemann Health Center. It ended up not being right for me and I was referred out. Due to transportation issues, I couldn’t go through with the referrals and was left to deal with it on my own for a while. Last semester, I decided to try meeting with an academic adviser at the Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity to help with time management. My adviser was lovely but in the end, it didn’t do much for me. I never figured out why I was procrastinating and I just continued cramming all my work in at the last minute. 

I was starting to lose hope when I discovered something known as Telehealth, a form of virtual counseling designed for those who don’t have access to therapy near them. While this wasn’t possible for me, they didn’t accept my insurance, it pushed me to contact Engemann again to see if they had any other options. I was a little apprehensive because my original experience wasn’t very helpful, but after my session with a new therapist last week, I think that it was just a matter of finding the right person. 

While the therapist I met with is temporary, until I get connected with someone long-term, we really clicked and he helped me realize the source of my procrastination. A lot of people assume that procrastination is a result of poor time management skills, but in reality, it’s usually a symptom of more serious mental health issues. For me, it stems from my deep-rooted sense of perfectionism. When I discovered this, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. This whole time, I blamed myself for not being disciplined enough but in reality, it was something much more serious. 

If my journey sounds similar to what you’re going through, I encourage you to reach out to a professional. The stigma around mental health makes the idea of seeking help seem only for those who are in a serious crisis, but the earlier you reach out, the better. No matter where you are in your mental health journey, I hope that you give therapy a chance and keep an open mind to all the different types of resources available. I wish you the best and good luck with your studies!

Additional Resources:

Mindful USC empowers the USC community to make positive change in the world by building a culture of mindfulness and compassion. There is ongoing training, practice groups and special events.

AskAri is a virtual wellness assistant. You can start a dialogue online.

And for more resources and ways to help your wellbeing go to wellbeing.usc.edu!

USC Dornsife also has some wonderful articles related to procrastination. Such as, Reining in Procrastination by Emily Gersema.

Featured image by Vic on Flickr

Sarah is an junior from the San Gabriel Valley studying GeoDesign. In her free time, she enjoys reading, exploring L.A., trying new foods, and of course, meeting new people. She can speak conversational Cantonese, and is currently learning Mandarin. Even though her Chinese is limited, that doesn’t stop her from striking up a conversation with other international students. She is always happy to learn about other cultures.