Well, we hope you’re enjoying Zoom University more than we are. This semester is less than ideal for us all and frankly, sitting alone in your room for multiple hours a day talking to your webcam sucks. For the first time ever, you would rather be sitting in the most depressing of classrooms, surrounded by new faces, listening to an overpaid professor blab on. But we all have the opportunity to make the most of this WFH situation. Maybe this is the year you plan to revamp your GPA and work ethic, or maybe you just want to get by and get through this. Either way, you’re going to need to create a study space at home where you can be productive, comfortable and happy. Here’s what Her Campus at UVic members are doing this year:
- Madison – 3rd Year, Business Student
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“My desk is where I spend most of my day, so it needs to be clean and well organized to accommodate my long classes and insane amount of homework. I keep my desktop pretty clean, and since I have e-texts for all my classes, I just keep my laptop, iPad, and a beverage of some sort readily available. Since my room can be dark, I have an oversized rice paper lamp for ambient lighting and a desk lamp in case I need more light at night.
I’m very OCD about my homework, notes and assignments, and keep my whole workflow as paperless as possible. I write all my notes using Notability on my iPad, upload them to Google Docs, and then link them in my personal database where I store to-do lists, reading lists, a customized grade calculator, and a tracker for co-op applications. This program is called Notion and is seriously a dream if you enjoy workflows and hyper-organization”
- Emma – 4th Year, Writing Student
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“I’m lucky to live in a house with lots of room to work in. Usually, I work at our kitchen table with my roommates to keep each other on track, but I take my Zoom classes in my room! My desk isn’t very well lit, so I have a very DIY setup that involves a coffee table, a printer, a box and two textbooks in the middle of the room. I spent the summer working from home, so I have gotten the process of getting focused at home down to a science. Find some of my learning-from-home tips here.”
- Dorothy – 4th Year, Sociology Student
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“Something that I find important is to keep not just my desk organized, but also my room. This really helps me stay focused beyond the limits of my work station —a calm work environment is pretty conducive to overall productivity and I find this really rings true in the context of COVID. Little things like having great room decor that puts you in a positive mindset can really help centre you in the chaos that is work- or study-from-home right now. Additionally, I find it helpful to separate my “work” areas from my “rest” areas. This means that, to the best of my ability, I don’t work while lying in bed or on the sofa. Those spaces to me are sacred, and intended for me to relax my find fully by vegetating, watching TV, or sleeping!”
What are your tips and tricks to creating an online school study space? Let us know in the comments below.