SWOSU Day 16: DITL with TA Catey

Hi everyone! It’s catey and I am one of the TAs here at SWOSU. 

My day started early at about 7:00am, I painstakingly got out of bed and got ready. Rena and I were on lab duty this morning at 8am. I love being in lab and watching the students work on their reactions. Over the past few weeks the students have improved so much in lab, and they are definitely going to kill it in orgo lab in college. 

After lab I went and grabbed lunch at The Grill on campus, where I ran into some participants. I failed to take a picture though because I am always distracted by something. The grill is definitely my favorite place to eat because it’s more customizable than the dining hall. 

After I ate my delicious chicken sandwich Ryan and I headed to the gym while the students had lecture. He somehow convinced me to go climbing. I was literally so terrified the entire time and I think my heart rate was at like 160 at one point. I am competitive though so I forced myself to get to the top, and for some reason I did 3 different routes (I’m not even afraid of heights, but for some reason it was terrifying) 

Rena and Amogh met up with us to play pickleball, one of our favorite TA bonding activities. I am obsessed with pickleball, mainly because I’m bad at tennis and literally like every other sport. BUT I’m not terrible at pickleball so it’s fun. We normally try and play a few times a week and we have definitely all improved. 

After pickleball I did some studying for the MCAT which I am taking later this year and relaxed until dinner. 

Dinner is always fun, not because of the food but because I love sitting and chatting with the participants. This week I am with Emma, Gavin and Jonathan W. Dinner was alright, dining hall food is dining hall food no matter where you are unfortunately. The best part is definitely the conversations. 

Dinner ended and then I had about an hour before I had to be back in CPP. I spent this time preparing my belonging lecture, which is a series of lectures from SSP that help students gain other helpful information aside from chemistry. The presentation tonight was on professional social media and letters of rec! I will always shamelessly plug my LinkedIn. (I FINALLY got to 500 connections). Although I may not be the best presenter I think the students enjoyed it, and will all have some helpful knowledge for their futures. 

 After my presentation students had about 2 hours to work on homework, papers etc. I always try and help when they have questions but unfortunately I was a Biology major. I try my best to remember what chemistry is left in my brain, and sometimes I’m helpful. When it hit 9pm we head back to the dorms, and everyone has some downtime. Most chose to go to bed since it’s been a long few weeks. Sometimes we will play games, or do sing-alongs, or my personal favorite GeoGuesser. Tonight was definitely a go to sleep early night for most. Before bed I did some more studying, and caught up on my TV show. 

Well that’s all for me! I am so happy to be apart of the SSP community and can’t wait to see what the next few weeks entail!

– Catey!