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25 October 2011
Posted in
GPSS Blog -
Graduate Life
I finished my undergrad longer ago than I would like to admit. Much has changed since 2004.
I finished my undergrad longer ago than I would like to admit. Much has changed since 2004. My first three years of college I owned a huge dell desktop that took up most of my desk and which looked disproportionately large in my tiny dorm room. My cell phone could only be used to make calls, at a high per-minute cost, and send text, which took hours to write on the ten button keypad.
When I was on my computer and saw one of my friends connect to IM or ICQ, I would waste quite some time chatting with them. However, that could only happened when I was in my dorm room, sitting at my desk, with the computer on (I actually turned it off everyday). In addition, at least one my friends, had to be in front of his computer.
Studying required will power and overcoming laziness. But once I started, I could avoid being distracted by going a quiet, isolated place.
I came to graduate school expecting to have somewhat of a rough time getting used to studying again. What I did not anticipate, however, was how much more difficult it is to study today.
I now carry my laptop pretty much everywhere and keep my smart phone close to me at all times. While this means that I'm able to work from wherever I am, it also means that I'm carrying with me two distraction-producing monsters.
Whenever I sit down, determined to get some school work done, I get attacked by dozens of rings, buzzes, alarms, pop-ups, and flashes.
The gmail tab reminds me of the number of unread emails I have (what if they are important?). The Facebook tab tells me I have a new friend request. When I go check who it is from (I need to check because I don't want people to think that I don't want them to friend me), I see that my high school friend is on-line and I say hi because I haven't talked to him in a while. He has to go, but as he is saying goodbye, my classmate wants to know if I already started my paper: "Now, but I'm about to…" Then the gmail tab, which still has a "number", starts flashing my brothers name, so I find my self switching from tab to tab trying to maintain the two conversations.
Then my mom logs on to Skype. She wants to call me, but I tell her I need to get work done, so she sticks to the chat to tell me about her friend's grand kids.
I finally open a new Pages document to start my paper. I write the date at the top and then remember that my order from Amazon should arrive today. I log in to track it quickly. Nope, it won't arrive till tomorrow.
I'm on my second sentence, and I get a text message. It's my friend, just saying hi. So I say hi back and tell her I'm studying. I set the phone down, write another sentence, and beep… another text. "Happy studies, hope you get a lot done."
Phone in hand, I decide to take a quick look at Twitter, just in case something interesting is going on.
And on, and on, and on. Two hours pass, I know what my friends are up to, I know what's going on in the world, I know where my Amazon order is, but I haven't started my paper!!!
Studying was so much easier when I was an undergrad.
Written by Raquel Orellana.
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