week 1

Individually we have completed research on specific areas that pertained to our interests within our project. Many of us had to shift focus to online resources as our in-person expo could no longer happen. For example, my areas of research were depression and eating disorders, where I included treatment options that were either accessible through online resources or able to be done independently. I found a study that showed the positive effects of the addition of simple 30 minute physical activities to depression and anxiety medications. Something you can do amongst the pandemic like exercising in your home, in your yard, or even taking a walk around your block. Online therapy options were always positive as they provided extra options to patients, but now more than ever we are relying on them in this time. We are doing our best to add as many personal touches to our website as we can, as well as different options to include as many people as we can when viewing our materials, such as visual and audio aids. I can not wait for you all to see our finished project, and hopefully we can help many students and faculty here at TCNJ.

Francesca DaSilva, 4.16.2020

Since I’ve been home, I’ve found it very hard to be motivated to do much of anything. The days kind of blur together, which makes it difficult to plan ahead for assignments and I have ended up mostly doing work the day before or the day it is due. As for the project, I do feel like I’m able to do more work in less time than I was able to do before. Like for the research paper that was due, I put it off until the day it was due and wrote all seven pages in about two hours. It did help that I already had the annotated bibliography done and knew what I wanted to say, but it was still a very strange experience. We’ve been a bit disconnected at times, but that’s only because we’re all so overwhelmed with everything that’s going on and all of our other classes. We're using the GroupMe a lot to discuss ideas, which helps and keeps me motivated. I think my biggest motivation right now is just seeing everyone in the class on our Google Hangouts. Seeing everyone’s faces makes me feel like things are almost normal, even though they really aren’t. It makes me feel less disconnected and more capable of doing work.

Ava Oakley, 04.23.2020

I’m finding online school to be very difficult. It’s very hard to stay motivated and on top of my work. I have pretty severe academic anxiety so I don’t like doing things last minute. I often try to have larger assignments in at least one night before they are due but am finding that almost impossible to accomplish in the past few weeks, even if I am passionate about the topic. It’s weird because I can do smaller assignments in advance without an issue, but not larger ones. And then my anxiety gets activated, and I am even less motivated because I’m freaking out. I eventually become motivated, but it takes a lot. When asking myself why I am feeling so unmotivated when I’m usually someone who enjoys school, I have come to find that I am in fact very angry at my circumstances. I am a senior at TCNJ, and COVID-19 has taken away my last semester: no more in person classes, I didn’t get to say goodbye to professors and friends, no senior week activities, graduation is postponed until who knows when, and I don’t get to go to London in May. Additionally, COVID-19 has also changed my home life: I can’t see my friends or go to the movies, Broadway is shut down for the foreseeable future, I have to wear a mask everywhere, etc. So yes. It’s okay to not want to do schoolwork and to want to watch Friends all day instead. It’s okay to want to organize your makeup collection instead of your school assignments. It’s okay to say “Not today.” However, I realize that school is something that needs to get done, especially as a senior. Therefore, I have found it very helpful to make color coded due date schedules. It’s a lot easier to see things when they are in order and easily identifiable, and it gives me such joy to cross something off, no matter how small. Another thing that helps me is to reach out to a professor, friend, or classmate when I feel down or confused. One thing that has helped me to stay motivated with this class is that I know this website will be a helpful resource for a lot of others who are also having difficulty right now. Additionally, meeting weekly helps me stay accountable for my work because I want to show my classmates that I am doing my part and taking this seriously. I also am very happy to see everyone each week. We work on our website, but also keep each other laughing and offer to help one another. It’s so nice to be working with friends and not just classmates.

Liane Russell, 4.24.2020

It feels very meta to be writing this blog reflecting on my mental state while working on this project focused on mental health. Like many students, the members of our capstone class have had to quickly adjust much about the way we work given our present circumstances and the necessary social distancing period we are in. Our original goal for our activism capstone project was to add nuance to the conversation on mental health on campus by organizing a mental health expo and to connect with students in person through tabling. However, social distancing has now totally flipped our approach to reaching this goal. We are now using this Google Site, a Qualtrics survey, and social media instead. Each week as we meet to update one another on the progress we are now making independently for this group capstone, the importance of sharing physical space is becoming clear to me. I’m generally a very independent worker and I love to work online (digital or bust), but our new circumstances have revealed to me just how much I had been drawing on the energy and passion of my peers during the first half of the semester as we got the ball rolling on our activism project. Like many of my peers, I feel stuck in a weird place because I know the energy we have for this subject and I remember how excited we all were to begin this project, but I’ve been feeling increasingly disengaged from all of my work lately (and not just because I am a spring semester senior). I didn’t anticipate how much this change in environment/the move off-campus would affect my connection to my courses. However, I’ve also noticed that I get the most work done now towards this capstone right after our online class meetings. Talking to one another – hearing the progress others have made yet also sharing the difficulties we are all experiencing in trying to maintain our effort levels pre-social distancing – gives me a boost each week and reminds me of our commitment to this project. Every Thursday directly after class I make a bunch of progress in my contributions to this project such as working on our student feedback survey and compiling research so much so that I work straight into Friday. I see the pieces of our project coming together as we all quietly add documents to our shared Google Drive folder and as we fill in the pages of our Google Site. Seeing other people’s work slowly go up, and seeing all of us making our slow but steady progress is encouraging. I think our progress so far definitely aligns with the motto of alone together. We’re chugging along together from a distance.

Dian Babu, 04.25.20

WEEK 3

I thought that by week 3 I would form a routine and begin to feel more normal and productive, but I do not find this to be true a lot of the days. I need structure and schedules to function properly. I am a person who thrives with active and busy schedule and can find myself to be very unmotivated during this time. It seems like even though I now have all this free time, I struggle to get assignments done. An assignment that would usually take me two hours max while on campus, now takes me the entire day. I try to take it day by day and not get to ahead of myself by worrying but is hard. This project's topic has always been important and relevant, but I think that is especially true in times like this. My research in this course has consisted of online advocacy and social media tools which I find incredibly relevant now since the only way we can really connect with others is through online platforms. I also studied and contributed to the anxiety portion of our research. Times like this can be very anxiety inducing, I felt really good when finding resources and tips on how to cope with anxiety and hope others find the resources useful as well! I am really proud of the work this group is doing and I hope we have a positive impact on our community!

Genesis Lopez, 5.5.2020

We have been away from school for almost three months at this point, and it feels surreal that I won't be returning to campus. With so much chaos happening around us, and in our own lives, it is difficult to process many emotions, feelings, or even focus on our mental health and well-being. I have been working full-time for the past few weeks, which I have never done while taking classes full time. It has been stressful, to say the least, but going back to work has also normalized things and added structure back into my days. I never would have imagined designing a website for our senior WGS capstone, but I am realizing how beneficial this can actually be. I am so glad my class can meet up once a week and discuss this topic and feel comfortable talking about our own feelings too. After all of our research and planning, I think this website can be a great guide for TCNJ students if they are looking for information and resources. There are always ways to take care of your mind and body and mental wellness should be a focus on campuses. I am really happy with how our website is turning out and I hope it can make a difference in someone's life!

Christina Buz, 5.5.2020

I never thought I would miss going to school more than I do now. Being on lock down has not been easy. At first I thought this would be easy, I though it would be like summer break expect I also have to do work. Coping with being home went from great, to feeling like I was going crazy, and now i'm starting to be OK with it all. I didn't realize how much of my life is spent outside of my home. I am an essential worker, I work part time in a bakery. Our businesses wouldn't be essential expect we bake bread for all of the local restaurants, so were open. I'm not sure which is more stressful having to stay home, having to go out side during this pandemic to go to work, or trying to finish my last semester of my undergraduate journey on an academic high note. So far the only things that have been keeping me on my toes are my pets. I have two dogs and a cat. My cat wakes me up everyday and without her I can't say for sure that I would have finish any of my assignments. My days at home have consisted of having my cat wake me up to feed her, then I do some work, then I take a nap. My cat then wakes me up again and then I go play with my dogs and then do more work. It has been this endless cycle for weeks now and i'm starting to get more used to as the weeks pass. If this pandemic didn't happen I'm sure this project would have been done much sooner, but being at home makes it easy to forget that I have work to do.

Catherine VanMorter 5.5.2020

An aspiring High School English teacher, I have spent the vast majority of my time in the education system perfecting my study habits and learning what practices work best for me. I quickly learned in high school that I thrive in environments where professors know my name, where I know all my peers and where the classroom is intimate so that there is more attention on the students as individuals. For this reason, TCNJ was my top choice. Over the years, I have learned that I remember lectures better when I sit somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd row and hand-write (this is a big one) my notes. Before every class, I turn my phone off and zip my laptop in my bag. Electronic devices have always been a huge distraction to my education, which I learned from having a laptop in high school and trying to take notes on it as an underclassmen. I simply cannot help myself to search the wonders of the world that are afforded us on the internet even while in class. So, I have taken deliberate steps to separate my in-class studying from technology. I have taken extra semesters in the summers to fulfill requirements. During those times, I uprooted myself to relocate onto campus because I knew I would not succeed without being physically in a classroom with that real-life face time with the professor and my peers. I have avoided online classes, understanding that online, I could never achieve the amount of growth that is in my potential. For my last classes in college to suddenly be reformatted into a medium that has proven to be a roadblock to my success was very challenging at first. The distractions that I knew would be a problem, definitely were. Then I did what any good teacher knows to do, I adapted. I learned new strategies; I found new ways to motivate myself. One of those ways ended up being the way that this class is so invested in each other. In WGS 496, we are quick to pick up slack. We are quick to support each other and vocalize our collective needs. We have become a well-oiled and empowering machine. The social distance has not changed this great strength of ours. I credit the way we finished this project with grace to the care my classmates and professor have shown me. We have created our own little community and have thrived under uncertain circumstances. I have learned so much more about group work, leadership and camaraderie from this experience than I thought could be possible under quarantine. Very simply, thank you, class; you make me so proud.

Madeleine Zurcher 5.5.2020

As an elementary education major, I have been very used to establishing routines in the classroom and for my students. I would've never thought we would all be experiencing something as uncertain as we are living through right now due to COVID-19. These past few weeks have been an odd transition from face to face instruction to online instruction, but I am very thankful that we can provide the rest of our TCNJ community with some helpful research and resources for mental wellness! Flexibility is an exremely important quality to have as a teacher and as a collective, and I am so proud of the flexibility we've all shown to make this project as helpful and powerful as it can be. Taking care of oneself and one's mental health is something everyone should feel comfortable doing and I'm glad we were able to make a strong impact in our community surrounding this subject.

Katherine Alcala 5.5.2020