Branching Out To Other Organizations

Do it. It will do you some good.

While joining a sorority will look great on a resume with the ever-lasting commitment you display, good character traits, your ability to lead -- it should not be the only thing that shows what you are capable of doing.

As it is still the beginning of the school year, try to look into other organization to not only build up your resume, but to also build up your networking. It will create a lot of connections to a field of interest.

All college campuses varies by what clubs are offered but each has a consensus for an enjoyable student life.

Look into an academic or business fraternity. It will show that you are goal oriented to prove your own leadership potential and your LinkedIn profile will be blasted with so many connections from your peers and current business employers who will be impressed with your endorsements.

Community service clubs are a great way to connect with something bigger. It can be for a national community service organization like Circle K International or Habitat for Humanity, where you vie for the same type of services for a common goal. Each organization not only provides their services to the community with something small like trash pick up or big like building a new home, but they also fundraise money for their counterparts! You'll get that heart warming feeling when you see so many smiling faces from a job well done.

Get cultural with culture clubs, even if you aren't born into it! You'll get a whole new perspective on an exciting lifestyle for people who are eager to show you! You'll learn something new every time and there will also be an abundance of food from all of the potlucks that will ensue. Yes, please.

Step out of your chapter to develop a better college experience. This will create many memories with different people who, too, share the same interests as you!

Declutter Your Sorority Junk

I feel that the longer you stay in a sorority, more items keep popping up. Some of those items can be crafts from your sisters or shirts from philanthropies. Naturally, all of these items are cluttering together in the corner of your room, closet, or floor. The best way to keep your room clean and clutter free from sorority “junk” are with these easy tips:

Make use out of your old shoe boxes. I am positive that I can’t be the only one that has empty shoe boxes lying around her house. Shoe boxes act as a great storage unit for a multitude of things. As there are a ton of shoe boxes and a ton of sorority tanks, they work well together to give you more closet space. Once shirts are folded and stored, the shoe box can be placed anywhere without taking up a lot of space in your room! 

Rolling drawers are great to hold your craft items. Everything can be divided up by glitter, glue, paints, and more. Rolling drawers become an essential piece to a crafter because everything isn’t mixed together, you have more than one shelf space, and you can move it around with you when you are crafting.

Sorority items are hard to keep around because some can hold a special meaning or some were given away to you and you just kept them around. One way to make sure sorority items don’t become junk is to store them in boxes, decorative or plain boxes from Target or Michael’s will do the trick, and place them on an empty shelf to stack or under your bed so it doesn’t make your room look too messy. Another way to de-clutter sorority junk is to give them away. If your items hold no sentimental value to you, it doesn’t hurt to pass them down to another sister or your little. 

Editor's Note: This post was written by Christina! Show her some love in the comments! 

4 Apps Every College Girl Needs

The one thing we keep on us at all times is our smart phone. We try to live without it but let's be real it's attached to our hand pretty much 80% of the time. We may as well make good use of the 15 GB in our lives.

1. Pocket Expense - This is an app that I use to track my finances. It's amazing to use for budget management, tracking your bills and keeping your accounts organized. I love it because it allows me to see where my money is being spent and where I'm going over budget. It enables me to adjust monthly and see a month in a review that shows me when I am spending more money than I have. 

2. Adobe Reader - I don't know about you but almost all of my professors send me articles, assignments and syllabuses in pdf format. When I use the Adobe Reader app, I can access all of these pdfs whenever I want. My favorite feature is being able to sort and save all of my pdfs. 

3. Quizlet - Flashcards are the easiest way to study on the go, but who wants to put up with all of the paper, I know I sure don't. Using the Quizlet app, you have access to all of the online flashcards from the Quizlet site as well as the ability to make you own! 

4. Your Chapter's Website Made into an App - So this isn't an app that you can find in the app store but it's certainly one you'll use daily. Both Apple and Android give you the ability to bookmark frequently used websites into apps on your home screen. Auto save your login information and have all of your chapter information at the click of a button! 

What apps do you use daily? 

Build Your Chapter Binder

                      

     

With recruitment over and school back in session, chapter meetings are about to get crazy! The best thing to do before that happens is to get organized and build the perfect chapter binder.

Honestly, I think the easiest way to stay organized is with segmentation - aka you need dividers. My chapter binder has 5 tabs - Notes, Calendar, Workshops, Constitution and a tab for my position or committee information.

Lets start at the beginning! I think that the best thing to have at easy access, not in a tab at all, should be a contact list with your executive boards phone numbers and emails. If relevant, you can put really any sister's contact information here. Then comes your first tab, Notes.

In the notes section, put notebook paper. A little more. Maybe a smidge more than that. If it seems like you have too much you probably have enough. Here is where you will keep notes during chapter, have spare paper for when you have that amazing t-shirt idea or when you need to talk to the person next to you without really talking. This would also be a great place to put our chapter printable!

Second, I would put in a calendar of all soroity events. This shouldn't replace writing the dates in your planner but it sure can help when you are trying to figure in when to have your weekly study group. This is also a great reference tool during chapter that enables you to always know what date something is going on. 

Third, keep a copy of your notes from all of your workshops. Your executive board doesn't just put these on for fun - they really want you to remember and be able to use this stuff. With a copy of all of your notes from workshops, you can reference back to your Academic chair's study tips during finals or your Special Events chair's checklist for a perfect event. 

Fourth, keep a copy of your chapters constitution and bylaws if it's something you have access to. Not only is it awesome to have one at eAsy access, but if you have questions about whether something is ok or not, you can refer back to your original rules. 

Last, keep a tab with info for your current position. When I was Social Media Coordinator, I kept a copy of all of my chapter's login information. You can also use this space to help keep meeting notes for different committees you are on. 

        

Good luck with your chapter binder and have a great semester! 

-Sonia

How to Organize Your Planner

The first day of classes is vastly approaching, for some people classes may have already started. With a new school year in gear, it's important to stay organized and the tool I use most to keep organized is my planner! Here are my tips & tricks to using your planner efficiently!



Start with a to-do list on a sticky note, random piece of paper, whatever. I find it easier to put assignments on a to-do list and then in the weekly section of my planner, I write the assignment down on the day I want to complete it and again on the day it is due.

I use a color coding system that is really simple:
Due Dates
Sorority Events
And then I use a blue or black pen to write down everything else.
I find using a color code system is really helpful if you keep it simple like this. I tried using multiple colors and it just confused me but do what works for you!

Make it Fun! If your planner is colorful and fun to look at you'll be drawn to use it more. This year I bought my first Lilly Planner (the one in the picture above!) & I am absolutely in love with it. Use stickers (Lilly has some Greek themed planner stickers), washi tape, the whole nine. Like I said, the colors will make using your planner more appealing.

What planner did you get this year? How do you organize it?

Transition from Summer to School Smoothly

Summer is winding down and it’s (unfortunately) time to get back into the academic flow. It’s beyond exciting to get back to campus and see all of my friends who have scattered across the US this summer, but it can be especially difficult to transition if you’re like me and spent the summer babysitting one of the world’s cutest families instead of a 9-5 internship or job like I have every other summer. When it comes time to transition from summer fun to school drudgery, I need a definite system to keep myself on track.

Probably my favorite back-to-school organizational tool is my dry erase calendar. It’s perfect for my very Type A personality and without it I absolutely would be a disorganized mess. At the beginning of each semester, I grudgingly print out the last page of every syllabus: the assignment list. I set up my month by using my vast array of markers to assign each class, work, DZ, and other things like university events (aka football games, Go Bucks!) a color and mark the assignments accordingly. If I have an extra important assignment like a midterm, I border the entire box so that date is heavily outlined and when I look at my calendar from afar I can clearly see when it’s appropriate to start panicking.

It's actually become infamous among my friends 

Another great way to stay organized is to hang each assignment list somewhere in your room. As the weeks go on highlight the assignments you’ve already completed. I think highlighting is a better alternative than crossing out assignments because you can still read what the assignment was in case you need the dates or anything later on. It’s a really easy way to look at your month week by week to ensure you don’t miss anything important.

I do carry a planner around but since my assignments are pretty spread out, the week-to-week setup of a planner isn’t very helpful and the monthly calendar is so small it would be impossible to fit five or six classes worth of info in those tiny boxes. While I depended on my planner in high school to get by, four years later it’s not such a helpful utensil for me. But my roommate lives by her planner, so it can also be used as a really helpful tool to keep you organized and have a monthly assignment list with a week-by-week breakdown. The same way I use different colored markers on my calendar, I’d suggest different colored pens for your planner just so every assignment doesn’t blend together.

This is probably the most I ended up using my planner… #priorities

One last really easy trick I use to keep my life organized? Since I always have my computer with me (most of my classes run on PowerPoint presentations) I saved my syllabi to my desktop and keep them all in the same place. Next to them I have the document outlining my graduation requirements for quick reference. So when I’m on campus and far from my insane calendar, I have an easy way to find my assignments, even when the wifi decides to kick everyone off the network.

I hope this helps keep your life in order as you switch from summer to school mode, good luck!