I’m currently in my sixth and last semester of my undergraduate college career, and losing my mind about graduation and going to pharmacy school. The workload I have for this semester isn’t that bad considering the fact that I finished all of my degree requirements within three years. I’m taking pre-health microbiology, animal behavior, culture and society in Korea, and yoga. Needless to say, my hardest class at the moment is microbiology, which the class can be the definition of “locking in,” aka just getting focused and committing to something. I studied for the first exam for a week straight to the point where I went to sleep thinking about the causes and symptoms of measles. I’m the type of person that will truly lock themselves in their room, throw their phone to their bed and sit at a desk for more than nine hours a day. “Locking in” is a humorous term when you think about it, and it makes you think about how our generation makes jokes about everything. The thing with “locking in” is that I only recently just learned how to properly study for my classes last spring semester, which is pretty late considering the fact that it had taken me three whole semesters to get in the zone. At least I know how to study now, right before graduation and matriculating into pharmacy school for the next four years. Getting “locked in” is not easy for me because I have a tendency to get distracted by my phone for an hour so quickly. So each semester, I’ve had some sort of incentive, usually a concert, to get me to grind out all of my big exams and papers.
Having an incentive to actually sit down and do some hardcore studying isn’t something that is out of the blue per say. However, my incentives are probably different from another random STEM kid in one of my classes. My freshman year of college, I struggled a lot with finding my people, but also with my classes (specifically chemistry). To “lock in” for my first two semesters of college, my incentive was genuinely being able to go home during fall/spring break, or the literal end of the semester (because I truly despised being in Binghamton). During my second year of college, if I’m being 100% honest, I do not remember how I got through the fall semester. Spring semester, on the other hand, is when my incentives to be the most powerful academic weapon became concert tickets. I have been a fan of basically everything and anything my entire life, and I’m probably one of the biggest live music enthusiasts. Last spring semester was one of the hardest semesters of my life. I was taking two very difficult classes (Organic Chemistry II, and Anatomy and Physiology II) and the two courses just loved having their huge exams being on the same week. This semester was the first semester that I had done an all nighter to study and it truly took everything out of me, as in I sobbed because of how tired I was before passing out for six hours after I got back to my dorm that day. I had honestly lost all hope when this happened, but thankfully my favorite K-pop group ever, NCT Dream,announced that they were touring in the U.S. That itself was already amazing, but what was even more amazing was that their New Jersey show was during Spring break. I basically lost a part of my soul when I was ticketing for this show, but it truly kept me in high spirits in all my academia before and after the concert. With that being said, last semester, I did not have any plans to go to any concerts,However, my close friend and I decided that we would go see ENHYPEN when I was home for fall break. I very much used this as an incentive to lock in for all my exams that semester with genetics and mechanisms of evolution. I ended up going to both nights and screamed my head off when Jake was right in front of me during “Polaroid Love.” Afterwards, I came back to Binghamton, acted like nothing happened, and “locked in” so hard using the next concert as an incentive.
Going back to this semester in general, I’ve been struggling with just my personal life and academic life in terms of being in a good head space. As if ENHYPEN and NCT Dream were listening to my inner thoughts, both groups announced another tour in the U.S. Best believe that I got VIP2 tickets for ENHYPEN a week before graduation, and I plan on doing anything to see my dreamies again. I truly believe that if I didn’t have these tickets as an incentive and something to just look forward to overall at the end of the semester, I would not have been able to go through or retain 17+ hours of microbiology lectures in the week leading up to my exam. What I’m trying to say is that “locking in” isn’t too bad, but also it is terrible at the same time because who likes studying that much anyways. I’m super thankful that I’m able to further my education (I guess …) and being able to enjoy live music by my very own favorite artists. If you have to “lock in” any time soon, I wish you luck and don’t do what I do by locking myself in my room for an entire weekend to study.
Christine Kim
Media Producer
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