Sadie Aldis
Social Media Influencer
For aspiring content creators starting post-secondary, Sadie Aldis shares tips on juggling university with social media and staying organized during the school year.
How do you balance university life with your career in social media?
Before entering university, I honestly had no idea how I would divide my time between the two things that mean a lot to me — my education and social media. However, I knew this would be something I had to figure out once I went to school and worked out my schedule. What has really helped me is to dedicate my days to specific areas of my life. For example, I spend Monday to Thursday in class and doing schoolwork (as well as a bit of filming for TikTok and YouTube here and there), and then Friday to Sunday is all about social media. It gives me so much peace of mind knowing that I have time blocked off for each responsibility, and my mind doesn’t have to switch back and forth between tasks — I’m the worst at multi-tasking. Conveniently for me, I’m making tons of university vlogs for my channel, which leads me to work simultaneously on school and social media on some days.
What piece of advice do you have for incoming students?
One of my biggest worries going into university was how I would make close friends with similar interests and whom I could trust. It’s definitely hard to put yourself out there in a room full of people you’ve never met! My one tip would be to make sure that you don’t sit alone in class. Yes, that’s right. Walk up to any person you see, and ask, “hey, do you mind if I sit here?” There’s a 99 per cent chance they’ll say yes because everyone is trying to make friends, especially in the first few weeks. By doing this, you’ve got an acquaintance, a study buddy, and perhaps an up-and-coming close friend. Keep in mind that you only need to make one really great connection with someone before that snowballs into lots of mutual friendships. Don’t stress. The right friends will come to you if you’re open to them!
What’s the most surprising thing about university so far?
I was surprised to see how few graded assignments we had for each class. I looked at the syllabus for all of my classes and saw that each had four to five assignments or tests that would be graded. Each weighted around 20 per cent of my final grade. This was a huge shock as it was a big leap from my high-school workload. The perfectionist inside me was shaking, mainly because an assignment with a lower grade could violently lower my average. Nonetheless, I feel we’re given the proper resources and time to execute our assignments and turn in our best work. Admittingly, my degree’s workload may be different than others, but you can definitely expect fewer graded assignments with heavier weight in university.
Do you have any tips to stay organized during the semester?
I’ve spent an absurd amount of time finding the perfect way to organize myself for school, social media, and my personal life. I’ve developed a master system, which I will share. First, I love putting all my school deadlines and due dates in Google Calendar. It’s super easy to colour code by class and see the semester at a glance to map out study time and grind time. Having a separate calendar for school makes my life feel much less cluttered.
Next, I use iCalendar to plan events about my personal life, social media, appointments, diabetes site and cartridge changes, and so on.
Lastly, I use a physical, daily planner to plan out my daily tasks, classes and appointments, and essentially my priorities for the day. These three planning methods make me feel like a girl boss as I know exactly what’s happening every month, week, and day in all areas of my life. To add, I take all my notes on my laptop using Google Docs and organize them into folders. This way, I can access my notes from any device, anywhere.
