Life success is dependent on numerous factors, such as intelligence, professionalism, and ability to communicate effectively. Strong social skills also help students enjoy their college years by ensuring easier interaction with peers and teachers. Today, many people stay at home for self-isolation from the coronavirus outbreak and find it challenging to entertain. Why not use this time for personal growth by improving your social skills? Here are the five strategies from Nerdify that can help.

1. Maintain Contact with People Through Social Media and Messengers
Coronavirus outbreak is the period, when people are limited in live communication. However, the modern world provides us with numerous media for distant communication, such as social media and messengers. Use these means to stay in touch with people you know. It is good to start the conversation by sharing some interesting material you find. Do not just resend it, as people are often annoyed by suggestions to study something they were not looking for. Instead, introduce that content by stating the most exciting points or giving your impression about it. It will help start a conversation.

2. Ask People About Things That Are Currently Important
Today, many people are anxious and frightened, and the best way to manage these emotions is to talk about them. Ask your friends and acquaintances about their health and the possible dangers they feel. Many of us have grandparents and other family members in the risk group. You could ask your friends about such relatives, as it is likely a topic of their concern. Think of the other problems your important ones could be facing and communicate them about these issues.

3. Formulate Questions in A Way That Demonstrates Your Real Interest
Often, people consider interest in their lives as a sort of politeness and conventional manners. Your task is persuading them in your real engagement. Give some introduction to the question, as it highlights your interest and provides a person with the context of the question, which is often missing during communication through social media. Prefer open-ended questions, which suggest a description of the situation in several sentences rather than words. For example, asking “They say that coronavirus is especially dangerous for older people. How is your granny doing these times?” is much better than “Is your granny ill?”

4. Avoid Emoji and Express Your Feelings in Words
Although emoji were designed to facilitate communication through social media, they actually reduce social skills and emotional intelligence. You just substitute your facial expression, tone of voice, and other non-verbal clues with a picture that still could be interpreted slightly differently by another person. After you have chosen some emoji, stop and think, what emotion it expresses. Now, substitute this symbol with the words describing your feelings and ideas.

5. Be Patient to Alternative Opinions
Coronavirus is an issue of current interest and importance, and many sources are trying to benefit by creating “fake” news. Some people could believe them, repost, and try to discuss it with you. It could be annoying, but do not get anxious. Try to listen to them and focus on their emotions rather than unrealistic information. It is excellent, if you are aware of the real situation and have facts that disprove the “fake” news. But do not give them solid knowledge. Instead, acknowledge the fears and emotions of the person, then give your opinion without neglecting the information they state. It will maintain a positive relationship and make your opponent open to your position.

Following these Nerdify tips will help you maintain and improve your social skills while staying at home, as well as make your personal relationships with other people better.

Nerdify is hearing bells ringing around the country again as students go back to schools and colleges.

This can be an exciting time of year, but sometimes a stressful and overwhelming one too. That’s why our Personal Nerds have compiled some awesome tips for heading back to your studies stress-free!

And don’t forget, if you need extra support, Nerdify is always standing by and only a message away!

1. Have your timetable and agenda ready!

Nothing will put a downer on your first day back at a college like turning up and having no idea where you’re supposed to go and at what time a certain class starts. Homework, lessons, extra activities and different events can be quite overwhelming so make sure you have a timetable that’s regularly updated and properly plans your activities. Managing your time is critical to your happiness and academic success! By the way, you can ask Nerdify folks to remind you about important stuff like homework, exams, workshops.

2. Be prepared with the right supplies and books.

If your school or college doesn’t supply enough of the right materials (let’s face it, do they ever?) then make sure you’re well-equipped for your first day back. Having the right supplies can not only help you to be more prepared and organized but stationary is also fun! Well, we think so at least. Also, nobody likes the person in their class who is always asking to borrow a pen!

3. Focus on the academic tasks first!

Everyone can slip into procrastination mode and sometimes prioritize their social activities and hobbies over their studies. But this can have stressful repercussions if we allow it to happen too often, especially in the first few weeks of term when getting ahead and staying ahead is important. Remember, if you need extra help so you can spend more time on fun activities then Nerdify is standing by to help you out with any of your tasks and assignments!

4. Write down your academic goals for the term or year.

As with everything in life, it’s so important to set yourself tangible goals and milestones. We all need something to strive towards, otherwise, it can often feel like our endless work has no real destination or result. Writing down your goals will allow you to properly manage your time and plan your strategy for reaching them. To do lists have been proven to be a powerful driving, motivating force!

5. Learn what type of learner you are!

If you have high expectations for yourself during this academic term (and why shouldn’t you!) it could be really important for you to work out what kind of learner you are. And we don’t mean whether you’re a slow learner or a fast one, or anything like that. But how do you better learn? What’s your process? Maybe you’re more auditory and need music and speeches. Perhaps you’re more of a visual learner that needs pictures and writing or maybe you’re vocal and need to talk about subjects and write notes to better retain the information.

And there we have it: 5 top tips from our Personal Nerds on how to get the most out of your first days and weeks back at school. Don’t forget to drop us a message if you need extra advice or support!

Halloween is so old, we are not even sure who started celebrating it first. It probably began in Celtic speaking countries (modern United Kingdom) and has originated from ancient harvest rituals and the celebration of the Celtic New Year, which Celts believed to be a magical time, when the dead would “sneak in” from the spirit-realm and wander around the Earth, like so 😉 Celts used to lit huge bonfires to drive the dead spirits away.

When Romans invaded Britain, roughly 2000 years ago, they’ve merged this holiday with their own – Feralia (Roman festival celebrating the dead and deceased). It is interesting to note that other cultures, halfway around the globe, also celebrated their dead at this time of the year. For example – Day of the Dead in Mexico (Dia de Muertos). Last Bond movie portrays this holiday in the opening scene.

Merging these two traditions (evil spirits walking the streets and celebrating the dead) has given the modern Halloween such a colorful and playful character.

What is “trick or treat”?

Again, several versions on this one. Probably comes from a tradition from the medieval times, when poor would go from door to door asking for food or money in exchange for prayers honoring the dead (since Halloween was about celebrating the people who passed away).

Another version comes from an ancient belief that souls of the dead were wondering around in the night and needed to be appeased. Giving gifts and/or food was a way of doing that.

Halloween came to the USA during the immigration wave from Ireland and England in the late nineteenth century. It quickly became a popular holiday all across the USA.

Today, we celebrate Halloween as an opportunity to unwind and laugh, play jokes on our colleagues and have a good time. That’s precisely why Halloween has spread across the world – everyone can have fun in their own way.

Since sweet treats are such a big part of Halloween, we’d like to share an absolutely insane looking witch finger cookies recipe with you. It blew our minds at the office, made our celebrations that tiny bit more exciting 🙂 Enjoy!

P.S. Oh, right! We wanted to show you the real monster living at Nerdify 🙂 Well, here it is:

Yep, we have a giant spider living inside our office! This adorable beauty is called Nick (weird name for a spider, I know). That’s a tarantula and, theoretically, it can eat a small bird or a mouse! In reality, though, Nick is really shy and actually quite lazy. Pretty much sits all day in the corner and kills an unfortunate bug once a week (that part is exciting to watch). We have him in the office to keep our Nerds “on the edge” if you know what I mean 😛

Happy Halloween everyone!