WHY KEY CLUB IS THE CLUB TO JOIN

Katie Phail | ’20-’21 Director of Fundraiser

Hey BEE-UTIFALS!!!!! I hope you all are soaking in those last moments of summer sun before school starts!!! This month has been an extremely busy one for me since I’ve been prepping for school to start again while starting on my college apps and participating in the August Service Month (which you guys should participate in too hehe). It’s been a bit of a blur, but I enjoy staying busy and being productive so it hasn’t been too stressful of an experience for me. College apps are an intimidating and stressful experience for all seniors, but if you start early before school starts, there’s less pressure on you during the school year. During this month, I’ve started on my essays for the different application portals and have been filling out my general information as well as doing last minute research about different colleges I want to apply to. I also have been working on work for my portfolio since my major requires me to submit one wherever I apply. I’ve been experimenting with different types of media with different themes so I can have a wide variety of art for the admissions people to look over and see an abstract version of my personality and what I can bring to the table. I usually work on my portfolio in the morning when my brain isn’t fully awake yet and then work on my essays and other application stuff in the afternoon after I wake up a bit. I found that this was really helpful because by allowing myself to have time to wake up rather than forcing myself, both my essay drafts and the art I created were much better than before when I didn’t have a set schedule for when I would get things done. Summer has allowed for me to work freely on everything that I want to have done before school starts, which has been a great benefit to this entire process. However, once the school year starts, I’m going to have to change my plans to accommodate for my classes and schoolwork. Because of how my schedule works out this year, I will have the afternoons free everyday, so I will spend that time working on everything for college, whether it be stuff for my application or for my portfolio. If I continue to make time for myself during the day and on the weekends, the process shouldn’t be too stressful and I won't have to procrastinate and finish them last minute. Of course, this rough schedule will have to be very flexible once I start getting extremely busy with projects and other commitments, but as long as I have a rough schedule and continue to set deadlines for myself, I know that I can get everything done without worrying too much. Some suggestions I have for you guys once you start this too is to ALWAYS set hard deadlines for yourself so you know that you are being productive and are getting things done so when you get really busy, college apps won’t be too much on your mind. Having an idea of what you want to finish and when you want to have it done by is always helpful in general, so this is a really useful tip that I would suggest following in order to help you make better use of your time and prevent you from having to procrastinate and stress over last-minute details. Obviously, I’m not an expert when it comes to this, but having struggled with time management a lot, I found this to be really helpful when it came to managing all of my extracurricular activities and their various workloads.