#20 I Don't Quit Blogs. They Quit Me!!

It has come to the time where us bloggers of MQUniHack are about to finish posting on our blog. For those of you who have not realised as we didn’t make it obvious, this blog has been a university assignment all along. Despite that, it has been a pleasure for the four of us bloggers revealing multiple uni hacks that would have hopefully helped you out during your time at university throughout the duration of our blog.  

As this is our last post, we have created a video for you all:

Here are a few words from all of us bloggers of MQUniHack about our experience of writing and publishing our posts:

“My experience doing all of these blogs has been interesting. It has been good talking about the different tips for university students and writing about some of my thoughts. The video was also pretty fun to film with the group.” ~ Jon B.

“As a student who's still learning to become more effective in many areas in life it was quite a challenging yet fruitful experience writing about studying tips, resources and other "life hacks" for uni students. This blogging experience has certainly broadened my horizon in the world of digital journaling.” ~ Michael W.

“During my time of writing blog posts, this blog has taught me many hacks that I didn’t know myself. As stated in my first post (#3) you know that I am passionate about gaining skills from assignments that can benefit me in my future, and I have gained so many new skills such as blogging from this experience.” ~ Aaron S.

"Participating in a blog has been a stimulating experience. I haven’t done a blog before so it has been a bit of a challenge thinking of what topics people will be interested about. Overall, discussing tips (“hacks”) for students has been enjoyable and I have learned a couple of new things myself!" ~ Aaron H. 

I and us other MQUniHack bloggers hope many of you readers of our blog have benefited from our posts, whether it is with your assignments, the planning and organisation of your studying, or internships.

Finally, we wish you all the best with the rest of your time at university or college.

#19 Student Advisors

Planning your university degree can be quite tricky. There are endless degrees available, countless majors and minors that you can do. So many options. Determining what units are required can sometimes be unclear, what are the required units I need to complete my degree? What electives can I do? What do I want study “for fun”? After all, you still need to work hard to pass.

 Most units have prerequisites so it’s very important that students look ahead and plan accordingly. If you are having difficulty with anything related to subject selection, there are student advisors who are always happy to go through your degree and answer any questions you have, just make an appointment! 

#18 Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a popular time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. Rather than working on a task for an indefinite amount of time, the Pomodoro Technique is all about working in short, sharp bursts and taking regular breaks to ensure the freshness of mind.

How to Pomodoro

• Choose a task you want to focus on
• Remove all distractions
• Set the timer to 25 minutes 
• Work on the task until the timer rings
• Take a 5 minute break, then work for another 25 minutes
• Take a longer break every 4 sessions (around 20  minutes)

To be successful you must ensure you remove all distractions and focus completely on that task. No social media, email, phone calls or even interruptions from your friends (just tell them you're on a "Pomodoro"!)

#17 Tips on building University and Business Relationships

Having good relationships not only helps in business but also to have a better life. The people in your life have very significant affects on you. Genuine contact with people can also help your career be successful. You could even build a good enough relationship at university to start a partnership in business with them if you wanted to.

Successful businesses want to develop closer relationships with customers. The following are some tips for building business relationships:

• Be a professional friend to build a network
• Before asking for something, offer something
• Be prepared and to the point
• Be emotionally intelligent
• Be truthful and have integrity

If you are trusted and liked, you will be referred and recommended and that is a great way to do business!

Hopefully this has helped you understand why relationships are important. These tips will help you in your university life and to kick-start your career.

- Jon Barnitt

http://stopsellingvanillaicecream.com/effective-relationships-clarity/ 

#16 - Exams!

With only a couple weeks of term left, assessments are picking up and exams will shortly be upon us. This can be a very stressful time for a lot of students. Many feel that the final exam will either make or break them for their course. While this can be very much the case it is important to remember that if you don’t go so well, don’t stress. University exams aren’t the be all and end all! There will be plenty of other opportunities. Anyway, here are some tips for exams:

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• Plan your time wisely! – Work on your weaknesses, spend extra time on the units that need it

• It’s never too late to start – Whether you’ve been studying regularly since the beginning of term or it’s the week before, START STUDYING!

• Ask for help – Don’t feel embarrassed asking your tutor or lecturer!

• Check out past exam papers!

• Use your reading time - Plan what you are going to say, start with the questions you're most confident with

-    - Aaron H

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#15 Daily Routine of having an Internship while Studying

A lot of people think doing an Internship would be boring, but in fact it isn't boring, it is pretty crazy if you work a lot and go to University a lot. A typical day of work and uni could look as follows:

7am - Get up and go to work.
8am - Have training at work for your Internship.
8:45am - Start working on the different things you would be required to do in your Internship.
10am - Workflow meeting with your work group discussing what work you're doing and what needs to be done to see if you have capacity to do more work.
10:30am - Keep working until lunch time.
12:45pm - Lunch time.
1:15pm - Go back to work.
5:45pm - Leave work and go to University.
7pm - Go to some classes at University.
9pm - Go home.

This is what a lot of days look like if you're doing an Internship Full Time and Studying. Hopefully this has given you an idea of what it's like to do this and to make your own decision if you would like to. Whatever you put your mind to, you have the ability to accomplish that.

#14 Trello - the perfect tool for project management

Looking for a tool to help manage your projects effectively? Trello is a tool you definitely don't want to miss! Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.



As a Drag & Drop Task Management Tool Trello is one of the best tool for team-based projects. Not only does it enable you to easily see the state of all the parts of a project, it also lets you easily assign tasks to team members, add checklists, attach files, and do other cool stuff. Trello is also a great tool for personal use. As you can see from the screenshot above I've been using Trello to keep track of my assignments. Each list represents a subject that I'm studying and each card represents the assignments that needs to be done. One feature that I really appreciate about Trello is its flexible tagging and labeling as I have created specific color codes based on priority (eg. red means very urgent tasks, and green means completed etc.)

Give it a try - you'll love it. Whether you're using it for team-based projects or for personal chores, you'll certainly benefit from Trello's intuitive and simple interface.