This episode is all about our recent welcoming and a message to all listeners regarding our brief farewell.  We are truly excited to introduce to you our new member Fey! She has been part of the CLCA on the help desk and recently transitioned over to the web team to help us out with her awesome video production skills. Fey will be working with Kenny and the entire web team staff to create more for the CLC community.  We would also like to express a sad, but exciting farewell. The in[Tuition] podcast will pause briefly until the summer so that we can allocate our resources on other projects. This was a long-term thought out plan and for those are on campus will likely notice some differences as we shift our focus to the actual Chapman Learning Commons space and its interactions with students. For more information, do check us @ubclearn on Twitter and Instagram, and don't forget to visit us at learningcommons.ubc.ca!

How does stress impact our ability to make decisions? Does stress recovery exist and what are the best techniques to have a productive, relaxing winter break post exam? In our final episode of the year, Kenny and Selina explore these questions, and more, as they delve into the science behind stress in relationship to exams, winter break, and decision fatigue. Our hosts are joined by the brilliant Patty Hambler, Director of Health Promotion & Education at UBC, who shares her insights on reframing our language and attitudes around stress. Find out more about the effects of stress on the body and consider how that impacts our ability to make decisions. How can we help prevent decision fatigue and make the most of the winter holiday? What do you think? Join us on this episode of in[Tuition] and make sure to keep the conversation going by commenting below, tweeting us @UBCLearn, or by checking out our blog at https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/category/archives/

Is procrastination always a bad thing? Can straying from an assignment to watch Netflix or go for a walk help you be more creative and efficient with your tasks?  In this episode of in[Tuition], Kenny and Selina share the brain science behind procrastination and explore whether procrastination as a student can sometimes be a good thing. What kinds of strategies are students at UBC using to help manage procrastination when that instant gratification monkey takes over the decision making part of our brain? How does procrastination affect our ability to make decisions? Can procrastination actually help us with our homework?  What do you think? Join us on this episode of in[Tuition] and make sure to keep the conversation going by commenting below, tweeting us @UBCLearn, or by checking out our blog at https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/category/archives/.

Decisions, as we know it, linger around in every aspect of our lives. Whether it be something so simple as buying groceries or choosing which university to go into, decisions follow us everywhere. And yet, when faced with decisions, the processes we go through to come up with them are different for every individual. For students here at the University of British Columbia, this is even more apparent. We constantly go through series after series of decision making processes, and it's hard to find two students whose experience is exactly the same.  The new Web Team duo, Selina and Kenny, take on a miniseries on decision making where they tackle questions such as: What decisions do students go through here at UBC? What matters to them? And, how exactly do students go through the decision making processes?

On this episode of in[Tuition], join us in a final farewell to the brilliant Laila and Flint. You'll hear from CLC Learning Services Librarian, Alex Kuskowski, on why the future of libraries is all about community and connection, meet our new CLC Web-Team duo Kenny and Selina, and learn about the legacy of Laila and Flint.

It's the beginning of a fresh semester and you're sifting through a fresh batch of syllabi. You see "Classroom Expectations: Academic Integrity" and skip right on through to the heading which says "Grade Breakdown". Admit it, we all do it. After all, each Academic Integrity section simply reiterates the same, bland platitudes, and all that really matters is the grade, right?   If Academic Integrity is such a ubiquitous tagline on campus, why do we spend such little time critically evaluating it as a concept? Perhaps more importantly, why ought we follow the rules attached to it, aside from the obvious disincentives associated with Academic Dishonesty? On this week's episode of in[Tuition], Laila and Flint answer these and other questions by interviewing random students on campus. In so doing, they ask one, simple question: "What does Academic Integrity mean to you, and why does it matter?" This generates many interesting responses, some idealistic, others cynical. What do you think? Make sure to keep the conversation going by commenting below, tweeting us @UBCLearn, or by checking out our blog:   http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/academi...

We all know that one student who takes Adderall before every exam. Pfft... what a flunky, right? Well... are they really all that different from you? We all have our vices, be they: coffee, energy drinks, cannabis, junk food, or otherwise. When used in excess, each of these can have serious health tradeoffs, so does it matter that someone else's vice differs from your own? In this episode of in[Tuition], UBC student duo Flint and Laila challenge the 'socially accepted' definition of vices. They discuss the trade-offs of popular pick-me-ups like coffee and energy drinks, while encouraging viewers to reconsider their own 'fixes'. In the end, they discover that everyone has a vice, so what's yours? B.C. Government Assistance:https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/managing-your-health/mental-health-substance-use/crisis-and-information-lines AMS Vice:http://www.ams.ubc.ca/services/vice/ Blog:http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/whats-your-fix/

The term “networking” of evokes ideas of shameless self-promotion, inauthentic social interactions and deceitful intentions. On the other hand, for some, the term also implies community-building, meaningful friendships and honest connections. In this episode of [in]Tuition, Flint and Laila spoke to Forest Kong, a recent graduate from the Vancouver School of Economics and currently an Actuarial Analyst at Morneau Shepell, on the process of networking and the myths that often surround it. We explored if it possible to form authentic connections in this competitive world of job-hunting, career ladders and utility seeking.

'Professionalism' is one of those buzzwords which often gets tossed around by people who want to give you career advice. But what does it mean to be a professional? Rarely does anyone give a precise definition of what it means to act professionally, and when someone does, they generally produce a rigid list of rules which are seldom observed in practice. In this week's episode of in[Tuition], Laila and Flint critically dissect established dogmas about professional conduct in order to construct a more functional foundation for the concept. In so doing, they tell their own stories regarding the jump from school to the workplace, and reflect on the pitfalls that they encountered. Check out our accompanying blog post here:  http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/31989-2/.

Graduation requirements. Class ranking. GPA boosters. Midterms. Is university just a system we have to “game” through? Are we all just robots passing through the motion for four years, so that we can get a piece of paper at the end of it? Undergraduate students in North America have been frequently criticised for lacking in critical thinking skill. But is their inability to do so a by-product of a rigid system or are they just feeding into a system that expects them to be “robotic”? In this episode of in[Tuition], Laila and Flint sat down with UBC professors Dr. Neil Armitage, Dept. of Sociology, and Dr. Jenny Peterson, Dept. of Political Science, to discuss the state of critical thinking skill among university students and how can they be engaged creative learners while “gaming” through the system we call university.