Life Skills

Being a student can feel really stressful, especially during the pandemic. Students have to balance the challenges of mostly-remote and online learning while sometimes experiencing feelings of isolation and loss. It’s not easy. However, cutting-edge research in neuroscience suggests that people can improve their health, stress levels and even academic...

Metacognition* is the ability to think about your own thinking; be consciously aware of yourself as a problem solver; monitor, plan and control your mental processing; and accurately judge your level of learning. Using the following questions as a guide and a metacognitive approach to develop your study skills, identify which study skills have been and are successful for you.

We asked A&S students to share their advice about the academic skills and resources that helped them the most. Here are their top 5 quick tips for managing stress. Remember that you’re more than just a student. Your grades don’t define you. Manage your time wisely to stay on top...

You face a lot of uncertainty in your life, be it in your academic path, in your career path, in your major and finding a job after college. We want to help you navigate its disorienting challenges! Alicia Sepulveda, academic coach in CU Boulder's College of Arts and Sciences, offers three tips to navigate uncertainty.

How do you maintain hope and motivation when your circumstances change or something doesn't go as planned? Alicia Sepulveda, academic coach in CU Boulder's College of Arts and Sciences discusses two factors to improve your sense of hope: agency and believing in yourself.

The following article was first published in Customizing Life: Personal development - One day at a time . Richard Feynman was a world renowned and widely successful theoretical physicist, even managing to win the Nobel Prize in 1965. He was a brilliant guy. And Feynman developed his own personal method...

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented/Achievable, Relevant/Realistic, and Time-Oriented. Learn how to apply the exercise and create a thoughtful, achievable action plan.

No matter what kind of uncertainty you experience, working through the unknown requires a growth mindset and self-awareness. This article helps you reflect on your approach to uncertainty and gives you guidance for creating as much certainty for yourself as possible.

There is more to your academic performance than Pass/Fail. Productive learning experiences are ultimately beneficial to your long-term learning, not just your short-term performance.

According to Hope Theory, developed by C.R. Snyder, hope is one’s ability to create multiple pathways to goals. Hopeful students have a strong sense of agency—they believe in themselves and in their abilities. They can clearly articulate their action plans. If one pathway doesn’t work, they construct another one and recognize failure as part of growth. Hopeful students focus on connecting their present actions to their ideal futures, which allows them to maintain or increase their engagement as they pursue their goals. They see obstacles as opportunities, and they embrace them as an essential part of their learning and growing process.