Tag Archives: phone

Adult Responsibilities, college, Food, health, lifestyle, student life, technology, USC

Useful Apps and Tools to navigate life

By Liane Chu

Edited by Natalie Grace Sipula

[3 minute read]

As students, we are all looking for ways to make our lives at USC more streamlined and convenient. Once the semester begins, time usually gets away from me, no matter how organized I am. However, I have started incorporating some apps and tools into my daily life to stay on top of things and generally help me navigate life on campus better. Below are a couple of these apps and tools that help me accomplish that goal!

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

1. USC Schedule Helper

This is a chrome extension developed by a USC student that is a life saver when going through USC course registration. This extension will let you view how many spots are left in a class before registering and shows if the class conflicts with another class already added to your calendar. If a section is full, you can sign up for email alerts to notify you when a spot opens up, which is particularly helpful if you want to get into a popular class but don’t want to spend time continuously checking Web Registration to see if a spot has opened up.

2. Coursicle

Similar to the USC Schedule Helper, Coursicle is an app that helps with the course registration process. You are able to search for a class, view recent professors who taught the course, the times the sections are offered, the average class size, and more! Download the app or checkout the browser version here.

Photo by Levi Elizaga on Unsplash

3. USC Campus Dining App

Tired of waiting in line for food? Well now you can place an order, pay ahead of time, and pick up your food whenever it’s ready! The app works for 18 USC Campus Dining locations including Fertitta Café, Burger Crush and Seeds Marketplace. You can pay with credit card, USCard, Dining Dollars, or meal swipes. Once your order is placed, you will be notified when the order is ready for pick up! This is particularly helpful if you only have a short break between classes and want to maximize your time spent studying. Learn more on how to download the app here.

4. LiveSafe

LiveSafe is a mobile safety app managed by USC DPS that allows users to contact emergency responders with a click of a button. The app works for both the University Park and Health Science Campus. Once you make an account, the app will allow you to contact DPS or 911 instantly, anonymously report suspicious activity, and have your friends and family virtually escort you with the SafeWalk feature. You can check out some fo the features of the app and download it here.

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Advice, health, Outlook, seasonal, technology

Zooming By: Taking Care of Your Health in a Virtual World

By Kaitlin Foo

[4 minute read]

Editor’s note:

If you are looking for things to keep you occupied during quarantine, look no further than this article! If you have your own perspective on how you cope with quarantine or any other topic you feel strongly about, you too can share these thoughts on our blog. We are opening the ALI Life and Times to any USC student who is interested in contributing. If you would like to submit a blog article for potential publication, please email hacco@usc.edu -Natalie Grace Sipula, Editor

Right now, many of us are working and attending school virtually. During this time, the fatigue of being stationary all day can have a negative effect on both our bodies and our mental health. I’m here to show you how to switch up your routine, try something new, or even get back into a hobby you may have quit a long time ago!

Take a break from your screen
Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

When we are on our laptops or phones for long hours at a time, our eyes make micro-movements, which put more strain on our eyes than necessary. To combat this, I do an eye exercise to “stretch” my eyeball. Make sure that your face is still; it is just your eyes that are moving! First, look up, look down, then left and right for 2 seconds each. Then I like to draw a circle with my eyes in a clockwise direction, then again counterclockwise. 

When I do this exercise, I find that my eyes feel less strained, and I can quickly jump back into my work. This is a simple, fast, and effective way to tend to your eye health.

Pick up a new hobby (or revisit an old one)
Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

I know, I know. A hobby? That’s soooo first-two-months-of-quarantine! But hear me out: I, like many others, fell into the trap of wanting to do everything I’d never had the chance to do when we were just starting to quarantine. However, this ended up backfiring and I ended up half-learning a bunch of hobbies (sewing, sign language, baking). 

This time, I want you to commit to just one doable hobby that you will see to fruition. This could be an entirely new hobby, like learning how to make lattes at home, or an old hobby (I recently picked up piano again because I realized I had never gotten to the level of proficiency I’d wanted as a child).

The important part of fully completing a hobby is to choose something that is feasible and then set a goal. You want to learn how to make lattes at home? That’s doable. Now set a goal: you might want to learn specifically how to make a matcha latte and a caramel latte. This ensures that you have a tangible objective to fulfill and having that end goal will propel you to complete this task. 

Start Journaling
Photo by Mathilde LMD on Unsplash

It’s easy to push your mental health on the backburner while trying to keep yourself from burning out. During this pandemic, I found myself dragging up old memories, inspecting them closely and over-analyzing them. With no outlet, these new revelations and analyses constantly bounced around in my brain. 

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