Surviving: Safety Seminar

Let's Learn How Not To Lose a Finger on School Property

If you're a design / theater / architecture / any-subject-that-involves-studio-classes student [in the future, present or past], you probably will have/have/had to go through the safety seminar. It is basically a class that teaches you to avoid sticking your hands into electric sockets, and to stay off the roof.

Please note: all of the tips in this posts are based on my own – fortunate and disastrous - experiences.

Pros 

Let's begin on a positive note, and discuss the clear advantages of this shindig:

• Eating your BK on the go. As the seminar is a morning class, you will probably have to wake up early. Namely, at the time range between sunrise and lunch. Also, since it's probably your first time attending any sort of class after a while, you'll be quite uncomfortable with time management. Hence, you probably won't have time to eat your breakfast at home. The fix: treat this occasion as an excuse to eat a cupcake. 

Chocolate chip oatmeal cupcakes from How Sweet It Is 

• A lecture hall filled with potential new friends. During the seminar you'll get to meet everyone you're going to study with for the next couple of years. So, get your niceness flowing! The course is a great opportunity to meet everyone before classes officially start, get familiar with names and faces, and make some new friends. 

Cons

• Waking up at an ungodly hour. It was quarter to six when I woke up. The number "5" on the clock startled me. The street lights were still on, the roads were empty, and it was 5 a.m.! [Talk about over-reacting]. Rolling out of bed was a real challenge, and I have yet found the fix for it. That also explains why it's the cons section. 

Hedgehog Clock from Etsy 

• Final exam. Designed to make sure that you didn't spend all of the time on Facebook, the exam asks you the most trivial, between-the-lines questions. So you'll have to listen up, and let your common sense play a leading role here. 

Tips

• Locate the nearest coffee stand. The day is long, the brakes are short, and there's much to be done. You are going to need a hot, comforting drink, be it a double espresso, or mint tea. Please note that Irish coffee might not be the best choice – but that depends on your goals for the day. 

Coffee Guide from Pinterest 

• Prepare a packing checklist the night before. I forgot my glasses at home. I can see pretty well without them, but not well enough to go all day without them. I had to call everyone who has access to my house, go back and forth, take a gazillion buses, and still make it on time. To say it was a hectic experience would be a brutal understatement. So please, learn from my mistake, and write a little checklist before you go to bed. You wouldn't want to realize on your half-way-there that your left shoe is somewhere under the bed. 

How do you introduce yourself to new people? Do you befriend new people easily?

Footnote: This morning – the day after the seminar – as I was enjoying my normally-timed a.m. routine, my food processor exploded in my face. Despite the fact that I still have banana pieces in my hair, I actually knew how to get the electricity back on. Thus, I'm declaring the seminar quite useful.