Resources for Success
Hello Kinners!
To our returning students welcome back, and to our first years welcome! We hope you have all had a smooth start to your term and are enjoying the transition from highschool. Welcome to the beginning of your career here at UBC Kin as well as the real start of your adult lives.
We are writing this post to help anyone hit the ground running this year and achieve academic success. Within this blog post we will include all sorts of resources and aids to help you reach your full potential here in UBC Kin!
Mental Health Resources
Up first, we have our mental health resources! To those students returning to campus this year, whether you’re in second year to fourth year, we have all experienced our fair share of mental hardships throughout midterms, finals, and even regular studying periods! It is important for you to remember that you aren’t alone!
There are many resources ready to help you out that are all free! For example, you can navigate UBC’s “finding health support” website (https://students.ubc.ca/health/finding-health-support) where you can get connected to self-help resources that you can work through in your own time. Here you can chat with a senior student or peer advisor about challenges in university or even talk to a professional one-on-one about your concerns.
Furthermore you may consult the UBC Student Assistance Program which is a free, 24/7 wellness resource for students located anywhere in the world. Services include personal counselling, life coaching, group programs and more based on your needs. These services are even provided in many different languages! Link: https://students.ubc.ca/health/ubc-student-assistance-program-sap
Additionally, if you’re just looking to have some time to recharge and get your mind off of studying, it is insanely important to remember to take time off! Many students often have this perception that you must SOLELY study throughout the school year, that your social life must suffer and that sleep is irrelevant. Take it from us, this is INCREDIBLY false. School is just as much about time off as it is time on. Remember to join a club that’s based on an activity you enjoy, or attend a KUS event!
Academic Resources
In terms of study tips, we have a few apps that upper year students have highly recommended. For apple IPad users, Notability and Goodnotes (DocHub for windows) are amazing apps that pair well with your apple pencil. Onenote is also a great option for other tablets out there and this should pair well with any laptop brand. Once you have taken your in lecture notes, you now have to solidify the information. Active recall is one of the best study strategies used all throughout medical school. Quizlet and Anki are two of the best flashcard apps you can download off the internet or in the app stores. Quizlet is more user friendly and works amazingly for arts classes (recommended for learning language). Anki is a bit more complicated, but the extra information you get about your own needs is well worth the learning curve. With active spatial repetition algorithms, Anki is probably the best tool you can have for anatomy and physiology as well as anything you need to memorize. Both of these apps have sync functions so that you may study your flashcards across all of your devices.
Another awesome tip we have for you is taking advantage of office hours (especially in first year). Working through your assignment outlines before and while you work on it with the person or people that will be grading it is just a great idea. Profs are just normal people like your highschool teachers and they are there to help you. Although you gotta call them dr. they really aren't scary and they are happy to help all students understand the material that they are clearly passionate about.
If you have questions about how to do better on exams, or how to take better notes, or how to study better. Come to the KAS study sessions! Here you can work with other Kin students who may be in your classes, but also take advantage of some of the upper year students' inside information.
