I learned the importance of taking a few minutes to just breathe for my mental health. Just taking a moment in my busy life to stop and think will help me make more coherent choices and helps me be more productive overall. When I have a lot of assignments due or when I have a packed schedule, I will force myself to take a breath and stop for a few minutes to gather myself. I found that by doing so, I stop stressing about the things I didn’t do and start focusing on doing one thing at a time. My advice is if you feel overwhelmed or don’t know where to start, to just take a breather and cross off one thing at a time. 

Group work!

I realized how important it is to work with other people. Yes, I can do work by myself, but I found it helpful to bounce ideas off my team, and it overall made our work better. I also learned that I like working with visuals to see a bigger picture. Working together helped me find my strengths while working, which helps me become a better student. My advice to others is writing down or drawing things out to visualize what needs to be done. It might be helpful to see it out rather than just thinking about it and forgetting something. I also advise working with other peers to see if you are missing something, or just helping each other out.

I realized code-switching was a really common thing most people do. Many people do it because they want to fit in. I personally pride myself on being myself authentically. However, I realized I would be more censored in certain situations, for example at work. I wouldn’t have the same deep conversations with my manager as I would a best friend. I would still be myself, but be more censored. I hadn’t realized how many people would switch up their entire personality to try and fit in somewhere. It was interesting to learn about why people code-switch in different situations. There is so much fear in not fitting in that people change their morals sometimes just to fit in. An important thing I was reminded of was that there is always a place where you belong. This doesn’t require you to change who you are. Just be patient and you will find a place you belong.