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Mid-Semester Motivation

10/27/2019

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by Ria Arora
Everyone has those days, weeks, even months when it feels like nothing’s working for them. They lack motivation, inspiration, and just feel stuck. As college students, we have so many things on our mind and it’s easy to get completely overwhelmed by all of it. However, there are a few habits that I’ve picked up in order to help myself get out of these funks.

1. Listen to music and DANCE! 
I love listening to new albums and artists when I feel stuck because it allows me to think of things in a different way and have a new creative anchor. Dancing releases endorphins, which will immediately make you happier and more motivated, especially if you’ve been spending your whole day sitting at a desk doing work.

2. Spend time with close friends.
Just being around positive, uplifting people who genuinely care about you will immediately make you more excited and happy to work! Most of the time it just takes a nice conversation with a good friend to you into a better frame of mind and allow you to get back into the groove of things.

3. Rethink your sleep schedule.
When we have many tasks to manage, we often completely mess up our sleep schedule. However, this affects our performance during the day and makes us forgetful, unmotivated, and tired. If you’re feeling stuck, fixing your sleep schedule will immediately make you more positive, attentive, and refreshed during the day!

4. Move around 27 items.
This is one of my favorite tips—it is a Feng Shui teaching and it actually works! Moving physical items around you allows you to connect with your surroundings and symbolically press the reset button. Changing your external environment is a really effective way to start looking at things from a fresh perspective.
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An Unexpected Roommate

10/27/2019

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by Sravya Devulapalli
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When I started college at NYU, I knew I was going to have an interesting experience. I mean, I was going to live in the city for the first time after having grown up in the suburbs all my life! Along with the fact that I’d be living with three strangers and experiencing college classes, I had a handful of new experiences waiting in the palm of my hand. Little did I know that I was about to have a fourth stranger come into my life.

See, when I was young, I never had any pets. Well, the fish I overfed when I was eight doesn’t really count. The reason that I never had any pets as a child was because my mom dislikes animals. I remember asking my mom if we could get a dog when I was eight and all she said was, “You’re going to have to pick up the poop.” Eight-year-old me was horrified and never asked her again.

Since I never really grew up around animals, I’ve always felt awkward around them. So, you can imagine my hesitation when my roommate said she wanted to ask NYU for permission to let her dog, Bella, stay with us. I wasn’t against the idea, but I didn’t really know what to expect. I mean, I was going to be living with an animal for the first time in my life! If I’m being honest, my first thought was, Mom is going to flip.

When the day of Bella’s arrival finally came, my roommate had already left for class by the time I got back to our room. I was meeting Bella for the first time alone. When I walked into my room, I froze for a few seconds as I soon as realized she was huge. Slowly, she came closer to sniff me. Then, she turned around and promptly went back to lying on her dog bed. That was the moment I knew that Bella was an angel.
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While it may seem like I’m simply talking about my experience with a dog, there’s more to this story than that. This was a way that I put myself outside of my comfort zone, which is something I wanted to push myself to do more once I started college. It’s also about adjustment. Throughout life, we will have to work and get along with different people. This means adjusting to their habits and making compromises, especially if you’re living with that person. Although I’m sure my journey with animals was amusing, there is still something important I forgot to mention: my mom still doesn’t know.

Photo Credits: Sonia Butt
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Best Coffee Shops for Getting Work Done

10/27/2019

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by Amanda Chin
As great as the study lounges are, I feel the most productive in a coffee shop—free wifi, a caffeine boost, and a motivating atmosphere are all I need. Here are my top five recommendations for coffee shops and cafes around NYU!
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1. Think Coffee
248 Mercer Street
Think Coffee is one of the most environmentally friendly coffee shops and it is less than two minutes away from Stern and a great place to be productive during your free time. The abundance of seating paired with its warm and cozy atmosphere makes this location the perfect place to get a hot chai tea latte on a cold winter day. And a bonus: if you sign up for the reward program you will get a free drink after 10 visits!


2. Bite Food and Coffee
820 Broadway
Bite Food and Coffee has a clean pink and marble aesthetic with an accent neon sign. The ambiance is calm, relaxed, and welcoming, making it a perfect place to grab some avocado toast and coffee while finishing up a paper. Similar to Think Coffee, this cafe has a stamp reward card and every 10 drinks, you will get a free one!

3. Bluestone Lane
51 Astor Place
This Australian style coffee shop has more than just coffee with a delicious selection of breakfast and brunch foods. The light blue, succulent displays, and big windows add to its cool and chill vibe. Although there is not a lot of seating, the aesthetic of this shop makes it worth it.


4. Irving Farm
78 W 3rd Street
A five minute walk from Stern, this coffee shop is very spacious with an earthy and mellow color scheme. Irving Farm has amazing coffee and bagels, the only downside is the lack of wifi. However, if you want to catch up on some reading, it is perfect to avoid the distractions of technology.

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5. Starbucks
Starbucks is a classic coffee shop with an abundance of drinks and snacks, seating, and an extensive rewards program. You can find one every few blocks when you’re in the city, but here are the closest ones to Stern that are great for studying!

45 W 4th Street
Located across from Gould Plaza, it’s convenient and easily accessible. And better yet, they take dining dollars! There is plenty of seating in this location, although it gets crowded throughout the day and can be dark inside if you are not by a window.

10 Waverly Place
Looking for a different Starbucks experience? There is a reserve close by! The reserve is smaller than the one across from Stern, it takes mobile order, has special reserve cups, and is well lit.

13-25 Astor Place
Last, but not least, this is my favorite Starbucks and one of the biggest ones I have been to! This location has all different kinds of seating from comfy chairs to tables to high to seating along the windows with a view of The Cube.

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Coping With Loneliness Abroad

10/22/2019

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by Dharaa Rathi
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To preface: even after reading this article, I want you to please study abroad. Because no matter how scary it might seem, it really is SO worth it. 

However, one of the things we never talk about when discussing the infinite merits of studying abroad is that it's never a perfect, blissful experience. Granted, looking back on this past year (London, then Shanghai), I mostly remember the happiest times. But even so, I will always have the lingering memories where I felt overwhelmed and basically alone. I went abroad with BPE my sophomore year and still felt that way, so I kept thinking "...Huh? Why? Am I doing something wrong?” And of course, I wasn’t. I just happened to get nostalgic for Thanksgiving for the first time in my life and didn’t know what to do about it.

This collection of confusing moments made me realize that because we’re at a school that celebrates crazy experiences like living in New York City, or traveling to different countries in Europe every weekend, we forget to remind ourselves that it’s okay to take a step back. No matter where you are, at NYU in NYC, or NYU in the rest of the world, it is perfectly, incredibly, shockingly normal to feel alone. Even when everyone is telling you, “You must be having the BEST - TIME - OF - YOUR - LIFE,” it is more than okay to have bad days and moments alone.

We are all so lucky to go to a school with so many opportunities. Those opportunities led me to the best year of my life, but at times, I still felt isolated, even when I was feeling so grateful for everything I had. At the end of the day, it really is all about reconnecting with yourself, your goals, and reaching out to the loved ones who will always have your back. This includes Facetiming your concerned and surprised family on Thanksgiving at 1 AM EST because you “missed fighting with them at dinner.”

 And so here are some techniques I used whenever I felt like I needed a pick-me-up:
  1. Called my friends back home, whether they were studying abroad in different places, or at different universities. 
  2. Grabbed the person closest to me (most often, one of my suitemates) and went out to dinner with them. It always helps to have a fun experience and one-on-one conversation!
  3. Listened to a podcast. My favorites at the time were How I Built This, Slow Burn (the Clinton years), and Dissect. They’re great escapes when you want a distraction.
  4. Netflix, obviously! Sometimes, you just want to stay in bed! 
  5. Went for a walk alone. It was so great to get a chance to see a city with no other commitments, so anytime I felt alone, I leaned into it and explored! 

And then, I would wake up the next morning, remember the amazing people I was surrounded with and the beautiful city I was so lucky to live in, and that bad moment would pass. It will for you too, so no matter how scared you are of being far away or alone, always take the leap. It’s worth it!
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Get Back to Work!

10/18/2019

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by Katie Leung
Summer brings beaches, winter brings slushy New York snow, fall brings pumpkin spice lattes, but exam season ... brings procrastination. The many options in the city are often a roadblock to getting through those thick textbooks and draining essays. But no fear! There are many tools made to help students battle through those tough couple of weeks:
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1. BaTo.Life
We’ve all had those moments of promising to only check YouTube for five minutes and somehow that ended up being two hours. BaTo.Life is an online application which allows you to set up breaks—and properly enforce them. After setting the amount of time for your break, the website will count down. After the timer runs out, the tabs you have opened will be closed, and an alarm will tell you to get back to work. Sort of like an aggressive parent but ... hey, it gets the job done. Literally.

2. Forest
Planting trees may seem like an odd reward, but it sure is a new, innovative take on combating procrastination! The app forces you to keep it open for a pre-selected amount of time, which lets you grow a virtual tree if you don’t go out of the app. Should you exit, your “tree” dies, but if you keep it open for the entire time, your tree is planted in the game. What is interesting is that Forest partners with tree planters: coins that you earn from being focused are partially donated to their tree-planting partners in real life.

3. FocusWriter
FocusWriter offers a very minimalistic, distraction-free writing document that you can use when typing up essays or papers. Leaving only a solid color background or simple wallpaper, the program can remove those tempting tabs open next to your still very-much blank Google doc. It also offers timers, alarms, and daily goals that further ensure that you can finish your 20-page assignment on time.
 
4. If All Else Fails ... The Excel Sheet Method
Personal tip: While strict, this method has worked quite well for me when I am under a tight time frame to get work done. Simply open up an Excel sheet and label three columns for “Event,” “Start Time," and “End Time." Spend a couple minutes “assigning” all the time that you would have in a day, including blocking out time for short breaks, specific assignments, and other activities you have planned for the day. Follow the schedule as strictly as you can, and even if you can’t finish a task, move on, and revisit it later if possible. Though pressurizing, this method of fighting procrastination has been highly effective for many people—especially when it’s 12AM at Bobst and your paper is due at 9:30AM.

Happy un-procrastinating!
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Meet the Fall 2019 Content Committee!

10/2/2019

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Ria Arora
Class: 2022
Majors: Finance and Marketing
Fun fact about me: I'm a singer-songwriter on the side and my album is out on Spotify & Apple Music. I try to write and perform my music absolutely any chance I get!

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Katie Leung
Class: 2022
Major: Finance
Fun fact about me: I studied medicine for 4 years at a medical magnet high school (hence my niche interest in medical memoirs)

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Amanda Chin
Class: 2023
Major: Marketing and Finance
Fun fact about me: I've been to 23 countries!
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Sravya Devulapalli
Class: 2023
Major: Business and Political Economy
Fun fact about me: My most recent bowling score is 11. Yes, I'm that bad.
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Dharaa Rathi
Class: 2021
Major: Business and Political Economy (focus in Marketing)
Minor: Chinese
Fun fact about me: I don't like fizzy drinks
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