Especially when things get stressful, it’s easy to feel like you don’t belong on campus. You might think that you’re not as qualified to be here as the people around you, or that you’re pretending to be something you’re not. Everyone struggles with feelings of self-doubt at times, and there are ways to overcome them.
Focus on your strengths.
Take time to consider what you’re good at doing, the skills you have, and the experiences that have shaped you. Write them down! Look at them when you start to feel like an imposter.
Set realistic goals.
Work towards achieving them. Break them down into manageable steps and celebrate successes along the way.
Talk about it.
Share your feelings with a friend, family member, or counselor. You might be surprised that others have felt the same way and can offer support and encouragement.
Remember, no one is perfect. We all make mistakes, experience failures, and have moments of self-doubt. We are defined not by those experiences but by how we handle them. Use your feelings as motivation to learn more and grow as a person.
Change is inevitable, but can still be daunting. The comfort of routine, familiarity, and the known creates a safety net, which can make stepping into the unknown feel overwhelming.
Our brains are wired to seek safety and predictability. Change disrupts this ease, and our bodies can react to that shift as a potential threat. This emotional and physiological reaction can lead to resistance and discomfort.
While change can be challenging, it can also be an opportunity for growth and transformation. Here are some strategies to make adjusting to the changes of fall semester a bit easier:
Understand the “Why”
We all came to campus for a reason – what is yours? When you grasp the purpose and benefits of your program, you’re more likely to embrace it.
Embrace Flexibility
Setbacks are a natural part of change. Be kind to yourself when you encounter a hurdle and keep moving forward.
Visualize the Outcome
Imagine the positive outcomes that being here will bring. Focusing on the end goal can provide motivation when times are challenging.
Celebrate Progress
Notice the tiny achievements you make each day. Celebrating milestones boosts your sense of accomplishment.
Practice Self-Compassion
Be patient with yourself and treat yourself with the same kindness you’d extend to a good friend.
Seek Support
Lean on friends, family, or mentors for guidance and encouragement. Sharing your journey makes it less isolating. If it’s on your mind, it’s worth talking about. Find an array of peer support and professional mental health resources at care.unc.edu.
Cultivate a Growth Mindset
Embrace the idea that challenges and change are opportunities for learning and development. You might not know something…yet. But with time, practice and curiosity, the possibilities are endless.
With these strategies in mind, you can navigate this change with grace. Embrace this semester as a chance to grow, evolve, and create a brighter future for yourself. See you out there, Tar Heels!
People are creatures of habit, following similar rhythms each day. But shifting our rhythms towards health can be difficult. Thankfully, shifts during times of transition can be ideal for incorporating new habits and set yourself up for success. Because changing habits means disrupting your routine, it can be more effective to add new behaviors or remove unwanted ones when other big changes are happening – like the start of a new semester. Here are research-informed strategies to help you start your year with positive routines:
Stack Your Habits
Look for patterns of behavior you already implement every day and connect new habits with those existing ones. For example, while you brush your teeth, you might stand on one foot to practice your balance. Or every day when you wake up, do a few minutes of yoga before you shower and start your day.
Start Small
Big behavior changes require high motivation that is difficult to sustain. Instead, consider tiny changes to make the new habit as easy as possible.
Do it Every Day
Habits take a long time to create but they form faster when we do them more often. You’re more likely to stick with a habit if you do a small version of it every day rather than big, deep versions of it a few times a week. During times of transition, you can create schedules that block daily time for your health – eating meals, moving your body, spending time with friends, meditating – anything that helps you be your best self.
Be Flexible
Try to give yourself grace – if you miss the scheduled time, go later that day. If you miss a day, start again as soon as you can.
Make it Easy
Set yourself up for success by removing friction to your success, or adding friction to the habits you want to avoid. Sleep in your workout clothes to make it easier to wake up and move. Choose a mini-habit that requires minimal equipment. Make the healthy choice the easy choice!
Make it Fun
Try adding habits with fun built in – listen to a favorite audiobook or podcast only while doing your new habit. This offers immediate reward of hearing that next installation to help you build your habit. Do your new activity with a campus organization to meet new friends, or pick your favorite person and schedule time to do your thing together.
All of us receive feedback at some point in our academic lives that make us feel like a failure. Whether that’s an actual failing grade, a lower grade than we desired, mean-spirited academic feedback, or something else – these types of critiques can be tough to handle.
If we can reframe failure, it can serve as an opportunity to learn and inform future actions and decisions. Consider these ideas before generalizing that negative academic feedback into a feeling about yourself:
Grades are an instrument of an educational system that quantifies learning using a “standard” measurement for a widely diverse population of students, and grades require that learning happens in a certain amount of time. These are not essential values for educating nor learning.
Receiving a low grade or negative feedback happens at one moment in time. It does not change the past, nor predict the future.
“Failure” is not indicative of intelligence, know-how, or worth. In fact, all grades are only useful for characterizing your work on a single assignment or exam in a brief moment of your life.
A low grade doesn’t necessarily equate to the effort you put into an assignment, project or test…but it might (if this rubs you the wrong way, please be sure to read the next bullet point).
College courses are designed to take up a lot of time. If you’re stretched by life’s circumstances and challenges, a low grade is likely a sign that you’re investing time into something more important instead.
Receiving a low grade can feel like we’ve “wasted” our time and effort. Another choice is to explore what happened and to decide if making some changes are worth it.
Receiving a low grade can feel terrible. Feeling terrible does not mean that you are terrible.
Most people who receive a low grade also graduate.
Once you’ve reframed the situation, think about what happened. Look at the situation objectively and consider what you could have done differently. How can you improve moving forward? Who can you reach out to for help? This could include seeking out resources like those at the Learning Center, using TA or Professor office hours, or working with a study group.
Be kind to yourself. Feeling like a failure hurts, but remember that everyone fails at some point. Treat yourself with compassion and use this as a stepping stone to greater success.
Schedule physical activity, healthy eating and stress reduction like you schedule your classes. If you schedule it into your day now, you’re less likely to skip it later. Bonus points for adding in social support – like by joining an intramural or club team, or scheduling fun fitness activities with friends.
Find and explore spaces to help you stay healthy at UNC.
Campus Rec offers 10 facilities that host all kinds of fitness classes, outdoor adventures, team sports, and aquatics. You have already paid to access these facilities in your tuition and fees so take full advantage!
Dining Services alone has 14 locations across campus, plus there are many options nearby in the community. Look for diverse options and nutrient-dense, yummy food!
Campus Health hosts a wide range of services including Sports Medicine, the International Travel Clinic, Gynecology Services and more. Counseling and Psychological Services is located in the same facility.
Find local health care. Connect to a primary care provider and pharmacy.
You have already paid for services at Campus Health through tuition and fees, so you can come to see a provider during the week at no further cost to you!
Campus Health offers same-day care visits for urgent needs Monday -Friday 8am – 6pm and Saturdays 8am – 5pm at no further cost to you.
Visit one of the two on-campus pharmacies – Campus Health Pharmacy or Student Stores Pharmacy to get the prescription and over-the-counter items you need. Most items are available at lower costs than in other pharmacies. Over-the-counter pharmacy items are also available in the Healthy Heels 2 Go vending machines in the Carolina Union and Rams Head Recreation.
Make your mental health a priority.
Start making friends! You are now in a community with more than 5000 UNC students also new to campus. Some of your soon-to-be lifelong friends are among them.
Get involved in campus organizations that interest you. This is one easy way to find people with similar interests. Search for what fits you using Heel Life.
Seek professional help before things get awful – ideally as soon as you start to feel overwhelmed. Initial visits to Counseling and Psychological Services are available Monday – Thursday from 9-12, and 1-4, and Fridays from 9:30-12 and 1-4. These have already been paid for in tuition and fees!
Get involved for a better UNC and a better you.
Grow your leadership skills, your intellect and your circle of friends by getting involved in something larger than yourself. Loads of opportunities exist on Heel Life.
Visit Student Wellness for resources, a piece of fruit, or cup of coffee. On us!
Find a system that works for you.
Use a planner or an app to stay organized and proactive about your health and well-being.
The Learning Center offers amazing resources including test prep, academic coaching, peer tutoring, workshops and a website full of resources (all at no cost!).
The Writing Center helps students become stronger, more flexible writers. Work with coaches face-to-face or online at any stage of the writing process, for any kind of writing project. And check out their online resources for tips about many common writing challenges.
We know you want to stay healthy at Carolina, and we are here to help! Reach out if you have questions @UNCHealthyHeels or healthyheels@unc.edu.
All too often, we tend to mistake hearing for listening.
Hearing is a physiological process by which sound waves are processed and passed along from our ears to our brains. Listening is a more complicated psychological process by which we comprehend, create meaning, and apply understanding. (2) Listening engages empathy and connection. This process asks us to be introspective and to challenge ourselves. Listening looks like putting your phone away during a conversation. Listening means you are not formulating a rebuttal or counterpoint while the other is talking, rather you are thinking deeply about what they are saying and taking time to process the information.
“Listen” by Ky. Flikr Creative Commons.
As a community, we need to deepen our commitment to whole-heartedly listening to survivors and to the professionals who work and advocate on these issues.
October is Relationship Violence Awareness Month(RVAM). During this month (as well as every other month) it is important that we work to hone our listening skills, foster conversations, and catalyze action.
Relationship violence takes many forms (including but not limited to physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual, economic, and verbal) and affects a significant percentage of college-aged individuals. (1) RVAM is a time of year when we seek to shine light on this issue and work to create a safer, more accountable, and inclusive campus for all faculty, staff, and students.
One way we can do this is by having more open and honest conversations. Through conversation, we seek to elicit action, foster change, and create impact. But when having conversations it’s also important that we take special note to truly listen, especially to those directly affected.
This year during RVAM, Student Wellness and the Compass Center is focusing on consent, communication, and healthy relationships. Throughout this October, members of the Carolina community are encouraged to show support by participating in any number of the following RVAM events.
Every Monday a live stream consent playlist is available. Tune in while you are working, out for a walk, or driving for an RVAM crafted playlist between 9am -4pm via Twitch.tv. (search RVAM consent playlist)
On October 21st, students can participate in 3 rounds of virtual trivia covering, the Spectrum of Violence and Pop Culture, Maintaining Healthy [Virtual] Relationships through Love Languages, Who, What, When, Where, and Why–UNC [Virtual] Campus Resources.
On October 28th, a collection of UNC organizations will be hosting a virtual panel to explore the intersection of Relationship Violence, Race, and Economic Justice. The event will be held @ 2:00pm via zoom.
A panel of professionals from Student Wellness, Equal Opportunity & Compliance Office, Carolina Women’s Center, Compass Center for Women and Children, will speak and help facilitate group discussions. This is an opportunity for us to engage, to speak, and to challenge our community and ourselves to take tangible steps to reduce violence and listen to survivors.
For more information, check out the RVAM schedule below. (all 2020 events will be hosted virtually)
Will McInerney has worked with the campus wide initiative to increase men’s involvement in gender equity efforts and violence prevention since its inception. He partners with students, faculty, and staff to promote positive, inclusive, and non-violent masculinities.
Will is also a writer, performer, and consultant specializing in Middle East and North Africa-based conflict zones. His work has been featured on National Public Radio, Al Jazeera, American Public Media, and recently at the International Storytelling Center. Will earned his Bachelor of Arts in Peace, War, and Defense from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Online learning for UNC students starts today. You are not alone if you’re feeling anxious or ambivalent or annoyed or any other feeling that starts with “a” (or any other letter) about this shift. This is a new context for most of us. We believe you can be successful learning online. We also understand that not all students have access to a computer or high-speed internet. Here are some tips that might help you with your academic life over the next few months:
Practice time management.
Mark major assignment and exams on a calendar you check regularly so you know what workload is coming in the weeks ahead. In a traditional classroom setting, you often receive verbal or visual reminders of an assignment’s upcoming due date. Now you will need to make sure that you have allotted enough time to complete the work so you’re not starting an assignment the day before it is due.
Create a weekly schedule that you follow, designating certain hours each week to reading, watching lectures, completing assignments, studying, and participating in forums. Commit to making your online coursework part of your weekly routine, and set reminders for yourself to complete these tasks.
When working on your assignments, try time-blocking, allotting yourself a certain amount of time for each task before moving on to the next one and setting a timer to keep you accountable.
Check in periodically with yourself, and look at how you’re spending your time. How much time am I dedicating to course reading and assignments? Am I regularly underestimating the time it’s taking me to get things done, forcing me to cram the nights before the exams? A little self-reflection and adjustment can go a long way.
Eliminate distractions.
A UNC student uses the studying area at Kenan Science Library on August 27, 2019, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)
Turn off cell phone notifications or put your phone in another room if you are working from a computer.
Find good internet. Many libraries are closed, but their internet access extends beyond their building walls. The same is likely with government buildings. Sitting in your car in the parking lot while working online is allowed during social distancing. Finding a spot outside on a nice day is as well. Some cell phone companies are allowing unlimited data during this period – so you may also be able to turn your phone into a hotspot for a larger device if you have one.
Working from Phone
Don’t have a larger device than your cell? We have some tips for you:
Use voice to text for your written submissions. (Make sure you review before submitting any thing you write in this way – these tools sometimes get it wrong).
Configure your phone best for you. You can turn off notifications or set your phone to stop notifying you of things at a certain time. Disable or uninstall apps that you don’t use.
Become familiar with your phone’s split screen capabilities. Using a split screen can help you connect your work with online research or your assignment’s requirements.
Remember How You Learn Best
When and how do you accomplish your best work? If you’re a morning person, make time to study first thing. More of a night owl? Set aside an hour or two after dinner to cozy up to your computer.
What types of information help you understand new concepts? If you’re a visual learner, for example, read transcripts of the video lectures to review. Learn best by listening? Make sure to build time into your schedule to play and replay all audio- and video-based course content.
Actively participate.
Participate in the course’s online forum to help you better understand course materials and engage with fellow classmates. This might involve commenting on a classmate’s paper on a discussion board or posting a question about a project. Read what other students and your professor are saying, and if you have a question, ask for clarification.
Set a participation goal to check in on the class discussion threads every day.
If you feel yourself falling behind, speak up. Don’t wait until an assignment is almost due to ask questions or report issues. Email your professor and be proactive in asking for help.
Leverage your network.
Online classes may sometimes make you feel like you are learning on your own, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Most online courses are built around the concept of collaboration, with professors and instructors actively encouraging that students work together to complete assignments and discuss lessons.
Create a virtual study group.
Pair up with a fellow classmate or enlist the help of a friend to check in as an accountability partner.
Keep open communication with your professors.
Connect to support that will lead you to success.
In this unique circumstance, it’s important to keep open communication with your professors and ensure you are connected to the support that will lead you to success.
This is a new scenario for all of us – be patient with yourself and your community as we all transition to online teaching and learning.
Resilience is often misunderstood. A lot of people think of football players when they think of resilience – able to take a hit, pick themselves up off the turf, and go for another play. Well-meaning students trying to celebrate resilience might support each other staying up until 3am trying to finish a paper.
Jumping over an official to make a left-handed grab likely requires some resilience. But there are better examples.
A resilient person is a well-rested one. When an exhausted student goes to class, he lacks cognitive resources to do well academically, he has lower self-control, and he’s often moody AF (not sure we can use that abbreviation here, but we’re going to because moodiness from not sleeping is for real).
Overwork and exhaustion are the opposite of resilience.
Resilience is the adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or stress. It means rebounding from difficult experiences.
A resilient person tries really hard, then stops to rest, then tries again.
The more time a person spends in their performance zone, they more time they need in the recovery zone. So the more imbalanced we become due to overworking, the more value there is in activities that allow us to return to a state of balance. In other words, the value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.
Most people assume that if you stop doing a task, like working on your Bio Chem homework, that your brain will naturally recover. When you start again the next morning, you’ll have your energy back. But we are confident that most of us reading this has had times where we lie in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep because our brain is thinking about all the things we need to do. If we lie in bed for eight hours, we certainly have have rested, but we can still feel exhausted the next day. Rest and recovery are not the same thing. Stopping does not equal recovering.
What is recovery?
Internal recovery is the short periods of relaxation that take place throughout our day – via short scheduled or unscheduled breaks, shifting our attention, or changing to other tasks when the mental or physical resources required for task completion are depleted.
External recovery refers to actions that take place outside of scheduled work – so evenings, weekends, holidays, vacations. If after your day you lie around and get riled up by news you read on your phone or stress about the paper you have due on Monday, your brain hasn’t received a break from high mental arousal. Our brains need rest as much as our bodies.
In other words – it’s taking time to do things that are fun and enjoyable. It’s doing different things like going outside and moving your body. It’s letting your brain take a rest by unplugging and getting good sleep.
If you really want to build resilience, you can start by strategically stopping to rest.
Ideas to help:
Have tech free time. Apps like Offtime or Unplugged to create tech free zones by strategically scheduling automatic airplane modes.
Set a timer to take a cognitive break every 90 minutes when you’re studying to recharge your batteries.
Don’t do work over lunch. Instead spend time outside or with your friends — not talking about school.
Balance your class schedule so that no one day is overfilled.
Take day trips or mini-vacations, preferably outdoors.
Find things that make you laugh.
Give yourself permission to get distracted. Sometimes those distractions can be brain breaks.
But when all’s said and done, the best person to tell you how to recharge is YOU. You know what makes you feel refreshed – do those things! At least one of them every day.
This article was adapted from Resilience is About How You Recharge Not How You Endure to make it more relevant to UNC students by Sara Stahlman, Marketing and Communication Coordinator for Campus Health Services and CAPS.
Finals makes many students feel anxious, intimidated, and stressed. Feeling overwhelmed by the difficulty of making through final exams is a common theme for UNC students. Exam success can still be in your future! Here are 6 tips from the UNC Learning Center that might help you or your friends:
Photo: “Finals Week Sping 2012-005” by Penn State. Flickr Creative Commons.
1. Prioritize to help make decisions about how much time to allot to prep for each exam.
Which exams will be hardest?
What portion of my grade is each exam worth?
How much time should I spend on each exam based on how I answered those questions?
2. Find out what you know.
Use your syllabi to make a list of key concepts you need to know for the test.
Hide all notes and books and test your understanding on each key concept. Ask yourself how well you can summarize main ideas, do sample problems, recall facts from memory, and apply concepts in a new way.
Finally, rate yourself. How did you do? Rate your skill and understanding on each bit of content from your list using this sample scale: 3= I know this well | 2= I know this some | 1= don’t know this at all
3. Make a smart study plan.
Make a study guide, merging main ideas from class notes and readings.
Find ways to actively engage with the material and stay accountable to learning. Reviewing lecture notes and assigned readings can often be too passive. Use active study strategies to practice the content you rated with a 1 or 2:
Make mind maps, time-lines, or flashcards.
Study with a partner.
Teach concepts to someone else.
Write or speak aloud the main ideas.
Generate higher-level thinking questions to test yourself with.
4. Make a smart study plan (part deux).
Once you’ve selected study tasks for the concepts you rated 1 and 2, estimate how much time you will need to complete them. Look over your calendar and lay out a plan, noting exactly what you will be doing and for how long. Break down studying into specific, discrete tasks. “Study Chem” is too vague. “Complete practice problems from chapter 3” is specific. Estimate how long each task might take and compare it to available time. Create an “appointment” to complete practice problems.
5. Test yourself.
When you’ve completed your Study Plan, it’s time to test yourself again. Hide all your materials and test your understanding on concepts you rated 1 and 2 the same way you did in Step 1.
Can you do a problem from memory?
Can you restate or rewrite what you learned?
Can you teach these concepts to a friend?
Can you answer questions you generated (not simple recall!)
Still stuck on a particular concept? Keep practicing!
6. Come to the Learning Center!
In addition to the strategies above, you can come to the Learning Center for our Study Boot Camps. Find out more about our Boot Camps and other services such as Academic Coaching and Peer Tutoring at http://learningcenter.unc.edu/.
This blog article was written by Bob Pleasants, Assistant Director of the UNC Learning Center. It has been edited for clarity and reposted.
Connecting with others during college, and especially stressful study season, has often been viewed as a distraction from success. But recent research is showing the clear benefits of friends to both your personal well-being and academic success. Bonus: both you and your buddies reap the rewards of friendship!
Here are ways you can help each other succeed during Finals Season:
Support each other’s work.
Even pets can help!
You can help your friends in so many ways – and doing so will help you too!
Use study groups to amplify your learning.
Teach each other the information you’ve learned.
Quiz each other on information you’ll need to know.
Proofread each other’s essays.
Hold each other accountable to study goals.
Affirm each other.
A high five while jumping in the snow is one of the best affirmations.
Celebrate efforts together. After y’all have been studying for a while, find something healthy and fun to do together to celebrate being done studying. As a reminder: focus on the effort rather than the outcome. An A on a test is great, but everyone will feel more supported when others notice the time put into studying instead of the grade received.
Support healthy behaviors.
Generally doing anything that makes you feel like a kid again counts as health-supportive.
When you celebrate study sessions or the end of finals, do it in a healthy way. Move your body together – go for bike rides, walk and talk, play a round of golf – whatever sounds fun to everyone. Be body positive and food positive – no body- or food-shaming allowed! Encourage sleep and find ways to help your friends sleep well. Earplugs, white noise machines, and light-blocking window shades or eye masks are helpful gifts to friends or roommates during finals and always!
Avoid stress competition.
Stress is not a competition.
We know the typical answer to “how are you doing?” – especially during finals – is “stressed” or “busy.” But this perpetuates the idea that to survive at UNC means being constantly stressed. A better answer? “I have been working hard.” Or tell your friend something fun you recently did and asking them what they’ve been doing to take a break.
Listen.
Even the walls recognize the importance of listening.
Feeling genuinely heard and accepted is one of our most important needs, and it doesn’t go away during finals. Providing empathy and acceptance is one of the most soothing things one can do for another.
As the listener:
Try to give your full attention.
Show that you are listening by maintaining eye contact.
Use body language to show you’re paying attention. Nodding your head and mirroring your friend’s feelings with your facial expressions can make people feel heard.
Listen non-judgmentally – meaning resist the impulse to judge who is right or wrong, good or bad, should or should not have done something.
Try not to make assumptions.
Reflect back what you hear and ask the person with, “did I get it?”
Ask, “What would help?”
Don’t be too quick to “fix” the problem or give advice. Make sure you show you understand what the other person’s needs and feelings are first.
Be like family.
Hugs for the win!
What did your family do to support you during high-stress times? Some ideas:
Cook each other dinner.
Ask if your friend needs anything when you head to the store.
Invite your friend to join you on study breaks.
Walk together to get to study locations.
Make your shared living spaces environments that are great for studying and connecting.
Find healthy ways to celebrate when classes or a big final are over.
Be authentic with each other.
Ultimately, you help create the vibe on campus during finals and the community you need to be successful. We guarantee that supporting your friends and the benefits you’ll reap in return will be worth it.
This blog was written by Sara Stahlman, Marketing and Communication Coordinator and revised for finals.
Establish healthy habits.
UNC Healthy Heels 