Quarantine Learning

Hello four more months of remote study

I have quite a bit to be grateful for over this semester. Making new and deeper connections with instructors and peers, learning that I in fact can survive 4 plus presentations a week, how to juggle a diverse set of team projects and personalities, and discovering how many tools I have finally begun to master.

What I didn’t expect to find out, were all the things that came after quarantine and remote study began:

1. When it is time to keep pushing forward, vs. when it is time to let go (and not think that you have failed for it).
2. That sometimes, you will attempt over complicated tasks, and miss the mark. It doesn’t mean that you are incompetent, but it does mean that you need to take a step back.
3. How to protect your free time, ie avoid zoom fatigue and slack drowning.
4. How to make your presentations interesting and your audience engaged, even if you are all virtual. Just because you now can have your notes in front of you doesn’t mean that you should be depending on them.
5. And finally, don’t be too hard on yourself.

I am excited (and nervous) for my program’s design sprints in May, and for the final push during the summer semester.