How to Improve Yourself As a College Student

Have you ever felt lost? Have you ever worried that you will turn in the assignment late? Have you ever gotten bored in a session? What about the feeling of “oh, the mid-term week is coming.” or “I’m not ready for the final.”?

As university students, we became more independent. We held more responsibility in academics and living. The unfinished works are stacking up because we received so many tasks. It is challenging to focus on school life while trying to improve ourselves as college students. In this article, we will discuss several issues regarding common concerns among university students and how to constantly improve ourselves. 

The first point is time management. It is essential on a daily basis, for personal life, work-life or school life. If we are able to organize the tasks well, we are more likely to succeed. It’s a skill set that is difficult to master. A lot of time, students receive so much work that they can not determine where to start, what to finish first, and what they will work on next. 

Have you ever asked yourself why you can’t get your work done despite the amount of time you have? Well, we should be aware of procrastination. It is the number one enemy for students. To solve this and to plan your day better, there are many methods and tools to use. The first one is to list down your tasks somewhere and that can be on paper or an application. We can start by evaluating what we have on the schedule and tasks that need to finish and list them all down so we could check them off later after completion. Some digital applications you can use are Evernote, Notion, and Google Tasks. 

Time management is a skill that is undoubtedly important for us, so work on it, and practice it so you can master it. It requires a strong effort to do it every single day until it becomes a routine and habit. 

Related to habits, have you ever reflected on yourself and your routine to see how that has shaped you as a person? It is important for college students to build good habits that will boost their confidence and health in the body and mind. 

The first point is to create habits of exploring new things. This will expand your knowledge and intuition. Allow yourself to be curious and open to new findings. There is a saying that goes, “the more you read, the better you will write” so read more books. In addition, doing independent research on any particular topic is also a beneficial way to fill that thirst for curiosity.  

For your body and mind, try to develop a habit of exercising and meditation. With the overload of work, stress might build up and clog which can lead to serious mental problems. Find time for yourself, do mediation, exercise, reflect on your life, share your feelings with your close ones, and do what makes you happy. 

Next, you should find more opportunities for yourself. You should consider taking part in events, online webinars, workshops, competitions, and more. This is the chance for you to start applying the knowledge you learn in the classroom to the outside world. You can also network with others who share a common interest in participating in the same event, and other vital soft skills. 

As a human being, it’s normal to have problems. At this age, college students are in the state of early adulthood. The transformation can be overwhelming. However, remember that all changes start with you. You are the factor determining your success. With the time you have now until you graduate, keep in mind that it is okay to make mistakes. You just need to learn from it. Take it as a lesson and make changes accordingly. You are the seeds of the future of your nation, the pillar of the growth and development of human resources. Try to practice implementing the above points and enjoy your journey of confronting struggles and self-development.

How to build more self confidence.

Self-confidence is a feeling when you trust your own abilities. Having self-confidence will help you increase your trust and belief. However, nowadays some people are starting to lose their self-confidence because of the environment they are living with. There are many reasons that lead people to lose their confidence which make them think who they are and what they can do. They will struggle with their actions and speaking because of a feeling of being afraid of creating a mistake, having a regret, and letting their surrounding people feel down. 

According to a website called “VeryWellMind”, it has provided various ways to help developing self-confidence. First, stop comparing yourself to others. It is normal when people compare themselves to others, but it does affect them in different ways. Moreover, comparing is not likely to lead to a positive thing, but it is more on creating enviousness and getting disappointed back to themselves. When you are starting to compare yourself to someone else, you should always remind yourself of the consequences from doing it. Everyone has their own choices, responsibilities, strengths and weaknesses. Life is not about competing with each other but it is everything about finding your own happiness. Second, surround yourself with positive people. The people you are staying close to have a great impact on your behavior and also the way you think. So, focus on surrounding yourself with the positive people and who would help you develop yourself, move forward and build up your confidence. Third, take care of your body. Taking care of your mental and physical health is also a part of helping build self-confidence. Exercising, doing meditation and getting enough sleep are important and provide many benefits to yourself, not only a peaceful mind, but also a good and healthy body image. Due to a study in 2016, discovered that when people improve their body image, they will feel more confident. Last, face your fears. Most of the people who lack self-confidence are afraid of trying something new. Their fears are making mistakes and messing things up. On the other hand, they should learn to head up to those things and keep those fears aside. No matter how hard the next step will be, they should give themselves a try and move forward. Making mistakes is not about doubting yourself, but it is about learning a new lesson and trying to avoid it next time. The more lessons you have learnt, the more confidence you will gain and be able to do things.

Self-confidence is a feeling of believing in yourself. It is easy to lose it and it is hard to gain it back. However, once you understand yourself much and earn back your confidence, you will not easily lose it next time. Remember to always give yourself a chance to learn and explore. Put aside all the fears, believe in yourself and do your best because once you start to believe in yourself, the magic starts happening, and that’s what we call self-confidence. 

How to stop eating when you are bored?

Hello everyone! My name is Timong. I am a self-aware, independent person who enjoys my own life with my own rules. When I was 18, I left my family and hometown to pursue my studies in Phnom Penh. I was worried about what I should do every day except study at the time. I’ve had a lot of anxiety living by myself in a room. One of them is caused by food stress since I am very picky about what foods I eat because I always want to be healthy. Day by day, I’m learning how to conduct myself in the ability to accomplish more activities rather than just be unhappy about the food. I gradually break free from my overthinking cage. So, I am pleased to share some of the amazing practices that I have been doing in my life to preserve my wellness up to this point.

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I would like to bring out important points which are: 

• Clean room: When I vacuum and dust your bedroom on a regular basis, I keep the air free of allergies and dust particles. Furthermore, it keeps germs and viruses away in my room. My sleep will be better and healthier once I breathe clean air.
• Skin care: To me, skin care is a physical relaxation. It helps me to grow my self-love and reduce stress. The act of caring for your skin also means practicing meditation. Meditation is when you focus on emotions in the present moment without passing judgment.
• Read: Reading is very essential to me since it is the only way I can feel the connection of mind and body with each letter, phrase, sentence, and paragraph written by the authors. I normally read books that are 70% relevant to my current situation and 30% relevant to my own interests.
• Photoshoot: Photoshoot may be beneficial to my mental health. It might be tough to see how something we enjoy and may do for a living can help our mental health. I take my phone and travel wherever I want to go, capturing nice memories for my own collection. This helps me feel better about billions of things in this world, and as a human, I have to learn from it no matter how hard life is.
• Shopping: Purchasing new products is a fun threat for me. Because I need to make a list of things I want to buy before I go to the mall. This helps me to unwind since it makes me joyful to buy new stuff.
• Decorating my room: It enhances my concentration. My personal spaces shape the rest of my life. To brighten up my health and serenity of mind, I always upgrade my space with new stuff I buy from stores or create myself. Natural light is critical for me to identify the flawless in the decoration. It causes positivity to flourish and reduces negativity since light represents hope.

These are my essential techniques for staying motivated and productive in every circumstance. If you are interested in any of them, please let me know. A fun fact about this article is that I wrote it while also redecorating my workspace and planning a photoshoot for the future. Anyway, if you have any questions for me, please contact me directly by email: maotimong20@kit.edu.kh

My name is Timong, a software engineering student studying at Kirirom Institute of Technology. I am a self-aware, independent person who enjoys my own life with my own rules.

How to Deal with Mental Breakdown? 

You feel stressed, your mood is usable, you have a hard time having meals regularly or sleeping at night. You do not feel like doing anything or going anywhere other than staying in a room. If you have these symptoms, it is a sign you have a mental health issue. Yet, not many people talk about it until it is too late to recover such as having health issue, anxiety, committing suicide and so on. So, how to deal with mental breakdown?  

1. Spend more times with friend and family
Simply when you feel down, you want to isolate yourself from the others. You don’t feel like talking with anyone. However, it is not the right way to heal your inner self rather than falling into the trap of feeling lonely. 
So, don’t ever stay alone when you have any problems. Going to talk with your family or friends who you feel secure to share your issue with. Or else if they ask you to hangout or spend time together, don’t hesitate to come along. It surely makes you feel better.

2. Do exercise: 

Going for running or exercise in the morning or in the evening not only improves your physical health but your mental health. You will feel healthier, happier to live your full energetic day. Your productivity and creativity will be increased because doing exercises improve your mood and decrease feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress. It also helps you get a higher level of concentration, so that you can do work better. 

There are many ways to do exercise, it can be 10 mins exercises at home daily or go for running outdoors. If you want to have proper exercise, you could go to the gym. Once your environment is changed, your feelings will be positively changed. 

3. Meditation: 

How much do you care about your inner self? Is there a time when you couldn’t control your feelings?

You easily feel anger, no patience, exhausted, overthinking, anxiety, and extra.  It is because you don’t know how to control your mental health. 

Therefore, meditation is the best way to calm down your feelings. It allows you to relax your mind. It helps you to leave your busy mind, on the other hand to absorb with positive thought and belief. Besides, it improves your sleep. You will have regular sleeping hours as well as it allows your brain to function well. So that you have better memories, and feel energetic. Likewise, it is a part of self-love which lets you have self-reflection and teaches you to appreciate yourself and the surroundings. 

Few tips to get a kick start with your meditation, you could do it twice per day. Once in the morning after you get up, and the other one at night before going to bed. If you are a beginner, you could start with 10 mins for each meditate. Also, if you are not sure what to do, you can find a lot of meditation guides on the internet. I would recommended you a helpful website: Calm

4. Self-love:

Have you ever asked yourself what is your self-love? 

People defined their self-love differently. Some might say getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, eating regularly, making yourself look good, buying what you want to etc. Or in another way, doing something makes you happy such as painting, traveling, watching movies and getting good food. Thus, asking yourself what your self-love means to you personally. 

Everyone has their own stories, their hard times, and it is ok to make mistakes, feel down, and disappointed. But remember not to give up. Good things take time, therefore take good care of yourself both physically as well as mentally. 

How to stay safe on the Internet

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There is no question that millions of individuals use the internet to communicate with loved ones and for professional purposes. At first look, you would assume that the internet is a safe place where you can share anything that has happened in your life, but there are numerous risks if you are not cautious when using it. So, here are a few tips to help you stay safe online:

1. Don’t share your personal information

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“Internet” is a place where millions of people can see other’s information and posts which can include your address, your phone number, your birthday, your relationship status, your job or locations that you check in on trips.etc. You might think that these won’t be a problem when you just post it but when you look back and think about it thoroughly. The hackers can use your number to do things like scam calls or in the worst case they can try to get the verification to your bank account. Moreover, when you check in at someplace, it is definitely dangerous because anyone can track you including theft or stalker. Additionally, you should also be aware that everything you publish on social media may remain online even after you erase it.These are only a few examples and there are still a ton of scenarios that you can’t even think of, so you have to think again and again and make sure you won’t regret it later.

2. Don’t just click any link

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There have recently been several reports of phishing attacks using social media and email. When you click the link, you are normally required to enter your email address credentials or your bank account in order to win a large reward such as an iPhone or cash. If this occurs, you can preview it first and then try to check it on the official page that you are required to visit. Spend a few minutes on Google to confirm that, and you will be grateful afterwards.

3. Don’t connect to public wifi

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Nowadays, cafés and other public places always have free internet connectivity that you may use to accomplish whatever you want. But there is a catch: when you are connected, hackers or anybody with basic computer skills may watch your actions and use them to obtain access to your bank account or other crucial personal information. As a consequence, you should avoid connecting to any of those public networks. It is safer and more secure to use your mobile phone as a mobile hotspot and share it with other devices. However, if you don’t have data on your phone, you may connect to wifi and use VPN (Virtual private network) to prevent any tracking.

4. Password management

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Passwords are the only way to access any online account. As a result, you should select a password that is difficult for hackers to guess or hack. It is advised that passwords comprise lower and upper case characters, as well as a symbol and a number. Last but not least, do not write your password in an easily accessible location since what is the use of having a password if everyone can see it?

How to be good at Math

Many students are facing problems of studying. Some of them don’t know how to study effectively specially for technical subject or the subject that have the calculation such as mathematic and physic. They gonna be easy if we know the trick of studying. 5 Tips to be good at math :

1. Start From The Basic

Don’t start with the big exercise by skipping small exercise. Most student underestimate small exercise . They think that they are easy and no need to spend time doing them. It’s a misunderstanding. Basic exercise provides you a clear understanding of the lesson which lead you to do the complicated one easily. Don’t try to understand the complicated concept if you don’t know the basic.

2. Study The Theory First Before Practicing Exercise

Some students say : To be good at math, we need to practice a lot of exercise and theory is useless. It’s a misunderstanding. We should study the theory(lesson) first before practising in order to get the clear idea and the purpose of the lesson. When we are clear with the lesson, it’s very easy to do the exercise. Remember that “Theory tells us how to practice” .

3. Fight Not to Miss Class

Class moves fast, teaching a new concept every day. Math lessons are connected from one to another one so if you miss any one class ,you won’t be able to keep up with the lecturer. What students do today builds towards tomorrow. Math punishes absences; to keep up, students have to make time to come back and learn what they missed. So if there’s an optional appointment to be made, take care not to schedule it during math.

4. Find a Good Friend to be Your Partners

Friend is the best teacher. Sometime you don’t understand what the lecturer explained ,but you got it easily when your friend explain it to you. It’s related to psychology. Especially, When we have legitimate absences. So find a friend who will take good notes when you’re gone and will call that night to fill you in on the homework. This is good practice for the real world, where building positive relationships is necessary to thrive. In more advanced classes, it’s a good idea to build a study group to practice for tests.

5. Self-Study

Study at school only is not enough. To be good at math, you must do more research regarding what you have learned in class by yourself. And If you don’t understand some part from what you have research, you pick it to ask your friend or your teacher. It’s the best to improve your capability. Self-study is more efficient than study in school.

How to Be a Better Pet Parent?

A pet parent is a person who owns and looks after a pet animal. Some people might already know some tips to be a good and responsible pet parent, but some people are just started to be pet parents or they do not have a pet yet but want to learn more before owning one. So, here are some tips to make you become a better pet parent.

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Keep your pet productive

You might find yourself having trouble making time to spend with your pet. Taking your pets exercising, walking, and running does help your pet to become more productive. It also helps to increase your bonding time with your pet and makes you stay fit. Moreover, your pet will become healthier with both their physical body and mental health. It can be counted as a way to entertain and train your pet as well.

Always be attentive to your pet

You need to always pay attention to everything about your pet such as their food, their condition, and grooming habits. Some pets need lots of care and attention from their owners. Their food is very important, especially the amount of food they usually eat and what kind of food is suitable for them. As well as their condition, and the way they are trying to show to us. They might feel sick or something is happening to them but they do not know how to express too. So, double-check and try to notice your pet’s condition. Similar to their grooming habits, they should be well-groomed, else there might be a chance for them to get infected with an unexpected virus or become ill. The easiest way to understand those would be to take them to the pet center or vets for checkups.

Invest in checking up on your pet’s health.

Remember to sometime take your pet for a checkup. You will need to invest in those health care but it is better than not knowing what had happened to them unknowingly and not being able to get the treatment in the first place. An article from “Be Chewy”, talks about the five ways good pet parents can become great ones, had mentioned that “Caring for a dog can be a challenge and not every problem can be solved just by looking online for the answer”, according to Gilbreath. What she is trying to say is that searching for the answer or solution to any problem about your pet’s condition will not always helpful. So, meeting an expert and having a consultation on any treatment for your pet’s condition would be the best way to keep the pet healthy.

Owning a pet is an obligation to keep them safe and sound, but being a better one, trying to understand everything about your pet’s condition is a way harder and it takes time for every pet parent to learn and get into those things. Once they are getting used to everything about their pet, they will feel attached and bonded as a family.

How to Make an Instagram Grid Layout Professionally?

Why is having an organized and attractive Instagram grid even important in the first place?
Have you ever found yourself scrolling endlessly through someone or any influencers Instagram feed?

Well, this is simply the answer why Instagram grid is important especially if you want to improve your Instagram game. Your grid is a chance to present your vibe or brand to someone who is following you for the first time or visiting your profile to look at your stuff.

You may see an overview of a user’s posting history using the grid. This is your first encounter with their body of work: a brief overview of their personal or professional brand.

After all, using your grid is a quick and simple method to communicate. Additionally, anybody who views your profile is considering following you. Here is your time to showcase what you have to offer. Below are the top three tips on how to create a professional Instagram grid.

1. Stick with a similar color combination

Choose a color scheme (white or black? ), or a specific tone (high contrast neons? ), to use in each picture. Even though the subjects of your photos vary, when all of them are combined, your gallery will appear to be a matching set. A professional photo/videographer @petermckinnon solely uses images with dark color, less colorful backgrounds with earth-tone. It’s a vibe.

Using such a standard filter or preset really makes the feed more attractive and eye pleasing. Perhaps, you might catch yourself scrolling through his feeds endlessly without feeling bored. Well, just remember that you are not alone.

2. Design row by row

Think creatively. A strong effect may be produced by grouping the photographs in each row according to a theme or color. Post three images within the same row, try to post it all at once and fix your grid accordingly to make sure that the wanted images are on the same row.

If you’re brave enough, try using panoramas for one of your rows; these are three shots combined into one continuous, horizontal image like this photographer (www.instagram.com/gregorygeipel/) did with his photographs of architecture.

As a result, it nicely gives the viewers a unique feeling that improves their overall perspective on the posts.

3. Embrace the border

Applying a border to all of your photographs will instantly give them a unified look. It compels the viewer to shift his perceptual priorities, which is a typical and necessary component of how we interact with our surroundings. As a result, it readily allows the viewer to “travel” within the image and “experience” its mood while being free of external distractions.

Thai celebrity @mark_prin/ uses white square borders on all of these images which makes it look effortless yet organized and clean. The free app picsart.com/ is a quick way to apply this edit, with a variety of colored borders and backgrounds.

After all, following these top three tips will definitely help you improve your Instagram feed. However, making a fantastic grid is only one method for drawing attention on Instagram. The content of the post ,the image quality are also something that the Instagram account owner should take into consideration.

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