ND Admissions interns and co-hosts Catherine O'Leary, Hailey Oppenlander and Tajae Thompson are joined by guest, Ben Fecher, a junior political science major who lives in Dunne Hall. They share studying tips for finals week and discuss how they keep in touch and stay connected with Notre Dame during the summer break.
ND Admissions interns and co-hosts Catherine O'Leary, Hailey Oppenlander and Tajae Thompson are joined by guest, Ben Fecher, a junior political science major who lives in Dunne Hall. They share studying tips for finals week and discuss how they keep in touch and stay connected with Notre Dame during the summer break.
File Name: Episode 9.mp3
File Length: 00:11:11
FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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Welcome to College Bound Intern Edition. We’re your hosts. I'm Catherine O’Leary.
00:00:05:06 - 00:00:11:14
I'm Tajae Thompson. And I'm Hailey Oppenlander. And we are here to give you the student take on Notre Dame.
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of College Bound Intern Edition, we’re your hosts today. I'm Catherine.
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I'm Tajae. And I'm Hailey.
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And today we're joined by a special guest. Ben, would you please introduce yourself?
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Yeah, my name is Ben Fecher. I am a junior in Dunne. I am from South Bend, and I'm studying political science.
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Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today. So today we're going to be discussing kind of general finals tips and, you know, going into the summer, like you need to be thinking about what you need to know, what you need to make sure you're doing. And so, Ben, I guess, will you just you start us off and just let us know, like, hey, how you approach finals specifically or really kind of any general tips you have?
00:00:55:22 - 00:01:29:12
Yeah, for sure. So one thing that's really helped me is starting, I like to try and start and figure out what I need to know a week before the exam, and then I can sort of spend that week studying in like small increments and breaking it up over time. There's this thing that I like to use called the Pomodoro technique. Maybe some of you have heard of it before, but basically what you do is you study for twenty-five minutes at a time and like you remove all of the distractions and then you take like a five-minute break and then rinse and repeat. So that's pretty helpful to me and I would definitely recommend that for sure.
00:01:29:21 - 00:01:33:08
Great. Thank you for that. All right, Tajae, give us your tips.
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Yeah. So sometimes I do struggle to follow my own advice, but I think it's really helpful to go to office hours, you know, like Ben was saying, like set that time before and kind of start early and just kind of get that help from your professors and some professors allow you to send your paper in beforehand just to see how you're doing. And if your professor allows that, definitely take advantage of it and just, you know, because it's the final paper and you want to do well on it.
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Yeah, that's a great tip. Definitely. All right, Hailey, let us know what you got.
00:02:00:00 - 00:02:24:19
I'm going to say don't skip meals. A lot of people during finals week get super stressed and will not eat because they just spent hours in the library. Please don't do that. Please eat. If you're on campus and you want to get a meal, I'm always down to eat it. It's fuel. It keeps you going. And there's lots of opportunities to get free food during finals week as well. So definitely keep an eye out for those.
00:02:24:26 - 00:02:55:20
Very, very, very true. Free food is everywhere. For finals week. I saw myself. These are I'm going to be sharing lessons that I learned, but I haven't necessarily internalized. I don't want to be hypocrite, but I would say do not abuse caffeine, as tempting as it may be, as much as you might like your Starbucks, which I do. Definitely, yeah. You just, you know, cut yourself off at two or three cups of coffee. It's really, it's not going to help. It's just going to hurt you and make sure to sleep. You got to prioritize sleep. Your study is going to go better. You're going to be happier.
00:02:56:12 - 00:03:26:29
You're going to be less anxious. And yeah, just continue to self care and do the things that make you happy and ground you and, you know, make you who you are. And I would just say, yeah, if you struggle with any kind of academic anxiety or whatever, do you know, address that as soon as possible because college is hard and maybe you're going on to grad school. So I would say the sooner you take care, that the better. It's kind of a serious tip, but I think it's important to point out here, and I'm saying that for myself, because I get a little anxious sometimes. So I guess moving on. Good. You know, good luck on your finals week.
00:03:27:07 - 00:03:44:12
But moving on to the next topic. So just kind of general end-of-the-semester, you know, when the semester is wrapping up and you might be going home for like a break and, you know, maybe you're thinking about packing. Maybe you're thinking about how to think about thinking about your friends like Ben. Ben, what do you thinking about during these times?
00:03:44:17 - 00:04:17:23
For me, packing isn’t a huge issue because I'm from South Bend, so it's easy for me to just bring stuff home kind of incrementally and not have to worry about it as much. But with the semester wrapping up, it is important me to, you know, save some time to spend with friends. There are some people, you know, who I don't end up seeing because they're busy, like studying or like worrying about packing and that sort of thing. But I think it is important to get that social health component of your life, you know, and still make sure you're prioritizing that. So, yeah, just generally spending time with friends, I would say.
00:04:18:02 - 00:04:22:13
Yeah, that's great. That's definitely very important. All right. Tajae, what are you thinking?
00:04:22:15 - 00:04:54:17
So I'm not from South Bend, I'm from Florida. So it takes it takes a bit more time to get my stuff together. And it's a lot to either, I don't drive down and drive back to Florida, it'd be too much. So I have to find storage here. So I think it's really important to find the group that you want to store your stuff with kind of early on, maybe like at least three weeks before the semester comes to a close, because storage space does fill up quite quickly and it can get expensive. So having a group of four or five people that you can split the cost with for the entire summer really will go a long way.
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And there's a lot of great storage places here in South Bend. It's just about kind of getting ahead of things and planning of it early.
00:05:00:00 - 00:05:05:13
Yeah, I totally agree that's that's definitely very important. All right, Hailey, you're up next.
00:05:05:19 - 00:05:29:04
Again, I really need to follow my own advice, but don't wait to start packing because it takes a lot longer than you expect. And what really gets me, too, is that you have to defrost your fridge and that takes like twenty-four hours or something. So you can't wait until a couple of hours before for that. So make sure that you're thinking about packing and starting before you you need to leave.
00:05:29:11 - 00:06:02:25
Yeah, definitely. That's that's very important. I echo all of those and then I guess just have to conclude it's always kind of nice to go on like a final walk of campus, especially at the end of the spring semester. So campus is just at its most beautiful and the flowers are blooming and the weather hopefully is good. Not always great, but but yeah. Just take your friends, walk around campus like, you know, get emo like like talk about the good times you had over the years and shed a tear to you if you're into that. But I don't know. I always love a final like a little walk around campus.
00:06:02:27 - 00:06:26:22
So I guess going on the nostalgia theme, let's talk about well, we'll miss on the name over the summer because the summers can be long. I think they're maybe like 12 weeks or something or maybe 10, 12 weeks and. All right, Ben, so I know you said you're from South Bend, but, you know, Notre Dame isn't just a location. It's a, it's a feeling. It's an experience. But, but tell us what you're going to miss.
00:06:27:18 - 00:07:03:29
Exactly. Exactly. So for me, I think I'm definitely going to miss the sense of community, especially within my dorm. A lot of the old friends that I've made and grown deeper connections with and some of the new friends I've made and started those relationships go and meet some of the members of hall staff, some of the areas where I'm graduating. I've gotten pretty close with them as well. So I think, yeah, just overall, that sense of community and the truly strong support system, I would say, which, you know, I'll try and, you know, keep in touch when I can over the summer, but it's just going to be different, I guess, not being in person and seeing everyone all the time.
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So, yeah, definitely the friends.
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Yeah, I love that. I agree. Go ahead, Tajae. What are you thinking?
00:07:11:00 - 00:07:39:09
Yeah. No, really. Just to echo what Ben was saying, it's just, I'm going to miss the community and J-Fam, you know, our new hall. So there was a lot to learn this year and I got to meet a lot of amazing first years that have, I'm obviously going to see next year. But it's just kind of sad to kind of be away for that full 12 weeks. But I've just been, I've gotten used to them being right next door. And then also our assistant director is graduating from law school, and I've been with her for two years. So I'm really going to miss her. And she's like going off to do bigger and better things. We're just really sad just to think about.
00:07:39:19 - 00:08:14:05
Yeah, definitely. It is really nice being like right next to your friends and it's so easy to hang out with them on campus. So I'll miss just being close to everyone. I'm going to miss my extracurriculars because I get to dance and sing and just do creative things with really cool people. And when you're home at the summer, you don't get to do those cool things. But we'll be back soon. So that's encouraging. And just being able to walk everywhere around campus is also really nice and something that I kind of take for granted when I'm here, especially when I'm running late to classes.
00:08:14:07 - 00:08:17:07
But I miss just walking places when I'm home.
00:08:17:23 - 00:08:50:23
Yeah, it's funny, no one's mentioned academics yet, but I will not be missing my organic chemistry classes. But I agree with everything I said and also like, I'm from South Carolina and over the summers, like it's just funny because I think a lot of people think that I will basically feel that, you know, Indiana, South Bend, Notre Dame have their best weather season, like summer, late spring, early fall. And it's the exact opposite in South Carolina. Winter and summer is the best season because it's like fifty five and sunny.
00:08:50:25 - 00:09:22:12
But it's pretty hot in the South, so I have loved the South Bend summers, like I only was able to be here for one. But Indiana is just gorgeous over the summer and everything is just green and glowing. And so I'm really I'm into that. And then yeah, I just kind of like what y'all been saying, being really surrounded by great people like you think about, you know, like a three mile radius from the Dome or maybe even like smaller than that. How many just incredible people that that radius we captured. That's incredible, unique phenomenon that is not easily replicated in the real world.
00:09:22:14 - 00:09:24:13
And so it's just like you got to, you know,
00:09:26:04 - 00:09:44:28
just appreciate that one all you have in your life. And I say that because I'm graduating in two weeks. And so I've just been thinking about that, but I'm not going to cry. And even if I did, you wouldn't be able to see that. So it's a podcast. Anyways, we always conclude with a nice piece of advice. So, Ben, would you would you take us home and tell us tell us what we're doing wrong and tell us what we should be thinking?
00:09:45:27 - 00:10:20:00
Oh, yeah, definitely. So I think one thing that has really helped me during my college experience is just the idea of letting go a little bit and not taking life too seriously, especially at Notre Dame, like a lot of the, very achievement-driven and oriented and thinking about the future constantly, which is good, obviously you should, you know, be doing that to some extent. But I think when you're always focused on that next step, you kind of forget to stay in the present and like take in the moments. And I think, you know, those are the memories that you're truly going to cherish.
00:10:20:02 - 00:10:32:05
And, you know, you're not going to remember trying to focus on the perfect GPA or, you know, that sort of thing. So it's definitely just stay in the present and try not to take life too seriously.
00:10:32:07 - 00:10:57:14
So, yeah, I agree. That was beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Please follow us on our social media ND admissions. We are on Instagram, Snap, Twitter and TikTok, and then we've got some great blogs. We've got a really strong blog team to check us out at admissions.nd.edu. But anyways, thanks for your, thanks for joining us again today, everybody. And Go Irish!