Hello everyone! My name is Linda Zhang, I’m a Co-Editor for the AEO to Ivey Blog this year, alongside the amazing Austin Chan! We have so many amazing articles from our team of talented writers that we can’t wait to share with you, but first—let me kickstart this year by sharing three important lessons I learned from the pandemic.
Control What You Can
In terms of personality, I’m as Type A as you can get. The pandemic hasn’t necessarily changed that, but it did teach me how to better cope with unwanted change. In the past, a slight detour in my plans would’ve sent me down a spiral of overthinking and unease—even if I didn’t cause the change. The pandemic was the biggest unpredictable change that bulldozed through everyone’s lives, and it modified many aspects of my university experiences that I thought were unchangeable. For example, if you had asked me in high school what I predicted my first year in university would be like, I would’ve never guessed it would be spent in front of a computer screen. Nonetheless, that was my reality, and nothing I could’ve done would’ve changed it. Instead of worrying about something that was utterly out of my control, I learned to accept change with open arms and focused my energy on things I could control.
Find Your Inner Drill Sergeant
In normal years, university offers less supervision than high school. During online school in the pandemic, that level of external guidance sunk to a whole new depth. All of a sudden, there was no bus I had to catch to get to class! However, the pressure of walking across my room to open Zoom was not the same as walking to the bus stop on time. This meant I had to constantly rely on myself to stay self-disciplined to ensure my transition to online classes was as smooth as possible. I adopted many habits during the pandemic to stay organized, such as taking time every Sunday to plan out the rest of my week on my personalized to-do list on Notion. One year later, the transition back to an in-person academic setting is easier with my newfound organizing tactics!
Don’t Worry, Be Happy
I’ve heard the pandemic gave a lot of people time to self-discover, but I’d say it gave me time to self-rediscover. I rediscovered many hobbies that brought me immense joy, which I had stopped frequently doing due to the hecticness of life. The happiness that burying myself in a good book or cooking up a nice meal for my family brought me was undeniable, and I made a promise to myself that I wanted to continue engaging in these activities even when life returned to its pre-pandemic conditions. The detriment of ignoring pressing matters, such as studying for your exams or clocking in to your shift, is more obvious than ignoring your hobbies, but ignoring either will have negative impacts on your life. It’s crucial to make time out of your schedule to do things for pure enjoyment and spend time with the people you love. While these things won’t give you compensation in the form of a grade or a paycheque, they are cardinal pillars to life that give it meaning and purpose.
I am beyond excited to work with the writing team to deliver more engaging content on our experiences. Feel free to reach out to me at tzhan537@uwo.ca if you want to discuss my AEO experience or anything related to this blog! Best wishes for this new school year!