It is only human to wish life would always be good, and that smiles would adorn our faces every day of our lives. Unfortunately, things are not always like that, you can find so many stories on Reddit! We can protect ourselves and our loved ones as much as possible, but trauma is trauma. When it comes for us or those we hold dear — and it doesn’t come with an announcement — we just have to find a way to overcome it, so this the theme Nerdify reviews today.

In this post from Nerdify reviews team, you’ll learn about 7 helpful tips to help you or anyone you know deal effectively with trauma while in college.

1. Try As Much As Possible Not To Blame Yourself

Grief is universal, most people have to go through it at some point in their lives. However, perhaps one of the biggest indicators of our individualism is in the way we grieve. Most people live out their grief differently from the next person. Regardless of this, no matter what happened or how it happened, do not let yourself wallow in a sea of self-blame. Trauma can have a very strong hold on the mind, and while one would expect the occasional feeling of guilt that could arise in some cases, it is advisable to never let it develop into a major mood. Self-blame will make you stray away from everything that makes you the person you are and eat deep into many other aspects of your life.

2. Be Flexible About Coping

Do not let yourself be boxed into a corner or a definition of coping. As mentioned in Nerdify reviews posts earlier, people are different in how we cope with challenges in our lives, including how we grieve or face trauma. While trying to cope with a traumatic phase of your life, do not lose your individualism to catchphrases or new shiny ideas off the internet, particularly the ones that would have you deny the presence of trauma or bury it deep inside you that all else might thrive. Be flexible. The college itself is already rife with stressors of all kinds as we can read in Reddit reviews, dealing with trauma on top of all that is not fair to anyone. This is why you should maintain flexibility as you cope. If you have to mix it up, please do.

3. Protect Yourself

Physical and mental health are very important in all of this. Protect yourself at all costs. If your college activities are in any way a major trigger for your mental health, it is best to recognize this and take the best step possible towards finding the right solution. Nerdify reviews team suggests seeing a therapist and going to group psychotherapy to identify those triggers.

4. Don’t Use Your Studies As A Decoy

It is not uncommon to see people use their immediate environment as a decoy when faced with some kind of trauma. It has worked for some people over the course of history but generally, it’s not always a healthy practice. For example, someone who lost a loved one and delved into academic activities as a form of denial would assume they had successfully escaped the grieving process unless, of course, it’s not exactly foolproof. The thing about covering things up inside you or using activities as a decoy is that it’s like creating a minefield inside you. It rarely ever lasts. It’s always much safer to go through the process now, though painful than to risk an emotional breakdown later on.

5. Go Back To Your Daily Routines

A good way to reclaim control of your life is to be involved in the things you would ordinarily be involved in. Don’t stay too long away from the gym if you are a gym lover. If you loved to spend time in the library, don’t stray far from it. That sense of balance is very important. However, endeavor not to fall into the trap of doing too much to show people you’ve moved on. Our fellows from Nerdify saw a lot of Reddit reviews stating that hobbies helped students get to their senses.

6. Take A Break If You Need One

There isn’t much to say about this. Sometimes a break is needed to effectively deal with the effects of trauma, especially if your activities as a college student is a major trigger. There are ways to go about this, peculiar to each institution. Meet with the relevant authorities and state your case. Even if you need to take as much as one semester off to deal with things, please do.

7. See A Therapist

This is coming last because it is the most important of all these tips. Seeing a professional is the first thing you should do when faced with trauma. No amount of online advice or fancy catchphrases can measure up to the help you’ll get talking to someone trained specifically to help out with issues like trauma. Your college life will be all better for it. Our colleague at Nerdify reviews specifically asked to include this advice, working with therapist once saved his life!

Nobody invites trauma but it comes for us all the same. When faced with it, everything—including your college life and academics— could be on the line. Following all the tips on this post will give you a great chance of overcoming trauma and preserving your college status.

We’ve got a feedback story from our grateful customer who decided to share his success story and help students who struggle with the chi-squared test.

This article contains a full and really simple guide to solving chi-square. To keep his identity anonymous, we’ve changed his name.

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I’m Donald and this is my story about conquering chi-square. Einstein was completely right saying that, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

If you’re currently struggling with the chi-square test, I’ll answer all — and I mean all — your questions about this tricky statistical method in really easy to understand terms!

I’ve adapted this article from the “Methodology” section of my paper. You are welcome to use it to understand how the methodology of your own homework should work.

What is the Chi-Square Test and Where to Use It?

The first time I had to use chi-square was when I was at the 4th year of my undergraduate program at Pittsburgh University School of Nursing. I planned to prove that googling about mental health issues can cause anxiety and negative emotions.

Thus, the topic of my paper was “How reading of online resources about mental health issues impacts patients’ mental and emotional state”.

I surveyed 100 patients. I asked them how often they read about health issues, and whether such a guilty pleasure triggers their anxiety. Then, I recorded their answers on a table.  

All I needed was to find the right statistical test. I looked through a short chi-square guide online and it totally triggered my math anxiety.

You know, I felt that I’m the dumbest person in the world. Thankfully, I did not give up and continued.

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At the end of the day, Donald resolves his case — being mentored by a professional Nerd.

Let Nerdify find your perfect academic match using AI! 🤖

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❓ What is the Chi-Square Test?

First things first, I got to know my enemy. Chi-square test is a common statistical method used to determine whether two things (in statistics they are called variables) are somehow related.

❓ How to find out whether variables are related? If one variable somehow changes, and another immediately changes in response, it means that they are related.

This is actually very simple to understand once you put the concept of chi-square in the context of a real example.

In my case, patients would be reading about health issues online and experience anxiety. If they feel bad after browsing horrifying symptoms of mental illnesses on WedMD, that means these variables are related.

To make sure that the chi-square method suits your particular research, check these criteria:

1. You need to analyze numerical results — specifically, the numbers of times you’ve observed something happening, or how many people gave the same response.
2. Variables are categorical — variables should belong to specific groups. For instance, respondents in surveys can be categorized by gender, age, political views, etc.
3. There are two individual variables (e.g. how frequently people google online about mental illnesses (very frequently or rarely) and the effect of their googling (increased anxiety or no negative emotions)
4. You only need a “yes” or “no” answer – chi-square can only tell if two variables influence each other. It never tells how strong the influence is and when or why it occurs.

Chi-square is used pretty much anywhere because it is a simple, suitable for any sample size, and cheap way to test whether two variables are related. For instance:

 

• In healthcare: is anxiety associated with online research about health issues?
• In sociology: is crime rate related to the poverty level in a specific region?
• In marketing: do sales depend on the region where products are sold?
• In politics: does voter turnout depend on voter age?

Given all this info, I decided that chi-square was exactly what I needed for my research. But how to convert my data into a table and then get all the calculations done right? After 5 days of trial and error, all I had was only errors and I got stuck.

Why Chi-Square Test is Mistakenly Thought to be Difficult?

You’d think that the good old Google knows everything, but nope. Page after page of the search results, I saw the same explanations by-the-book, which were all Greek to me. Without statistical education, I got the theoretical part but was completely lost when it came to practice.

Then a friend of mine recommended me Nerdify. Nerdify connected me with a perfect Nerd — a Master in Medical Statistics and finally, I knew I was going somewhere!

A detailed explanation from the Nerd on how chi-square works and how I should use it — it was all that I needed to nail my super difficult paper.

Why was chi-square so difficult for me? As my Nerd said, it happens with all the students for the following reasons:

• Extremely complex definitions and explanations that make chi-square seem very entangled and confuse students
• Without illustrative examples, complex formulas are overwhelming for anyone who does not have a fancy for math.
• Lack of time teachers can devote to explaining every topic — students often have no one to ask for an extra explanation
• Lack of knowledge due to that your major doesn’t have anything to do with statistics. As a student nurse, I didn’t have any background in studying statistics at all.
  

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  Want a Personal Nerd to step in and make your test easier?

• Explain formulas?
• Provide real-life examples?
• Mentor customization of statistical methods to your project?

 📲 Message Nerdify to get help!

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If you’re struggling just as I did, for whatever reason, I’ve got a perfect step-by-step guide to chi-square that you can use!

Really Simple Step-by-Step Chi-Square Guide

Right off the bat, you should know that it’s totally acceptable for non-statistics students to skip doing all the calculations manually and use online chi-square test calculators.

However, my college professor required all the chi-square formulas explained in the paper. Thus, if you’ll use chi-square, you need to understand this method to interpret the results correctly.

▶ Formula Explained

When you see this abomination of a formula, you probably think it’s extremely complex:

where

• χ2 — value of chi square
• Σ — sign of sum, means the total amount of elements in a sequence
• O — observed value of a variable, or the numbers you already have from observations or task description
• E — expected value of variables you need to calculate yourself; they represent how the variables would be distributed if there would be NO relationship between the variables

Even if you do all the calculations using MS Excel or SPSS, you still need to know where to put which number!

In sections below, you fill find out more about where to find these numbers.

Now it’s time for the best part — calculations!

 

0️⃣ My Case ➕ Sample Size

In my research, I surveyed 100 patients. I asked them how often they read about health issues, and whether such a guilty pleasure triggers their anxiety

• So there were two categories of patients: those who frequently research health issues and those who rarely research them
• There were also two options of their emotional response: increased anxiety and no changes  

Right now, I know my sample size — the number of observations. How many people responded to the survey? How many times you’ve seen something happening during the experiment or study?

In my case, sample equaled 100 — the number of people who participated in the survey.

 

1️⃣ Creating a Chi-Square Table

Using this data, I created this contingency table:

❓ Contingency tables present observations in matrix format — rows and columns, just like the table above. This type of tables is very commonly used in statistics, especially because it demonstrates how two variables are connected.

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	Increased anxiety	No changes	Total
Frequently research
Rarely research
Total

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2️⃣ Choosing Statistical Significance

If you’re writing a paper using the chi-square method, chances are that the level of statistical significance isn’t given. Where do you get it? You choose it yourself!

❓ Statistical significance — is the likelihood of that the relationship between two or more variables is accidental and the results of the observation are caused by something else than just chance.

For instance, if a patient gets anxiety every time he does online research about health issues, then statistically the probability of getting anxiety, aka level of confidence is 100%, or 1.

If a patient gets anxiety in 9 times out of 10, then we can confidently state that the probability here is 90%, or 0.9.

The most typical levels of significance are 0.05 and 0.01 — both are 100% safe to use in your paper. I chose 0.01 because the lower the value, the more significant results you’ll get — lower significance implies a lower risk of error.

Why do we need the level of significance? My Nerd had a good metaphor to explain it. Imagine that you have to climb up a ladder that has 100 steps. The more steps are missing, the higher the risk that you’ll fall. That’s why we set a very low level of significance — to make sure that calculations are correct!

 

3️⃣ State your Hypotheses

The hypothesis is a fancy word that confuses many students, but in reality, the hypothesis is just an assumption that you have. In chi-square, you’ll need 2 of them.

• Null hypothesis (H0)– usually states that the results of the observations could result purely from chance and the variables are independent — if one of them changes, another one stays the same and doesn’t react to the changes in the first one.

My H0 would say that getting anxiety isn’t connected with researching health issues online.

• Alternative hypothesis (H1)  states that the sample observations result not from a random cause, but from a specific cause and the variables are dependent in some way.

That is, my H1 says that patients really do get anxiety and experience negative feelings after researching health issues online.

4️⃣ Fill in Observed Values

Here just enter all the observed values into the table:

❓ Observed value — what actually happened or how many times you’ve seen something occur. For instance, how many respondents out of 100 admitted to frequently research online about mental issues and get anxiety from it

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	Increased anxiety	No change	Total
Frequently research	36	9	45
Rarely research	24	31	55
Total	60	40	100

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5️⃣ Calculate Expected Value

Here we calculate values that would be observed in case if there would be no relationship between researching health issues and experiencing negative emotions.

❓ Expected value — it’s calculated by the formula below and show what would happen if the variables were absolutely independent — wouldn’t affect each other at all.

where

• E — expected value
• Mr — row total for the cell you’re calculating an expected value for
• Mc — column total for that cell
• n — sample size
  

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	Increased anxiety	No change	Total
Frequently research	27	18	45
Rarely research	33	22	55
Total	60	40	100

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• Expected value for “frequently research, increased anxiety” E=45*60/100=27
• Expected value for “only rarely research, increased anxiety” E=55*60/100=33
• Expected value for “frequently research, no negative emotions” E=45*40/100=18
• Expected value for“only rarely research, no negative emotions” E=55*40/100=22

 

6️⃣ Calculate Chi-Square Using the Formula

Once again, you can use online calculators, but this how it’s done in practice (aka the hard way):

 

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Not ready yet to move further with chi-square test?

Find your Nerd to ease your pain. In anything. Unless it’s legal. 😎

 🧐 Get Connected to a Personal Nerd!

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7️⃣ Calculate Degrees of Freedom and Critical Value

Now that we got chi-square calculation done, let’s calculate the degrees of freedom

❓ Degrees of freedom (df) — the number of independent variables that went into the calculation.

Just think of those promotions “buy 2 — get 1 for free!” — you’re free to choose several things, but +1 product is always set by the promotion. Degrees of freedom, however, subtract 1 from both your rows and columns.

You need to use a chi-square distribution table and find your critical value at the intersection of the degrees of freedom (df=1) and the level of significance (α=0.01):

So, our critical value is 6.63. This value is smaller than our χ2 =13.63 Therefore, in our chi-square test example, researching about health issues online and getting anxiety or negative emotions are related.

We don’t know how much they are related, because chi-square doesn’t answer this question. But we definitely know that they are somehow related.👌

Chi-Square Calculators — the Easy Way

Even if you need to do all the difficult calculations by yourself, these calculators are awesome to verify your results. Or, if you’re lucky, online calculators are all you’ll need to use to calculate chi-square!

1. Social Science Statistics Calculator — easy to use chi-square calculator that can calculate up to 5 rows and 5 columns. You can enter category names, fill in the data, and get the result in a flash.
2. Kent University SPSS Guide for Chi-Square — if you have SPSS, you can consider your chi-square test pretty much already done. This guide will help you learn how to import chi-square tables and graphs into the SPSS and get the task solved. Many colleges and universities use SPSS as their default tool, and your professor may ask you to show your SPSS datasheet.
3. Chi-Square Calculator — another extremely simple online chi-squared test calculator. All you need to do is enter the observed values and you’ll get degrees of freedom and chi-square ready.

How Can You Nail Chi-Square: My Pro Tips

If anyone told me I would be able to do it just a week before connecting with a Nerd, I’d never believed it. It was simple and logical explanations from my Nerd that helped me completely nail chi-square test and do all the calculations by myself.

Now, I understand each step of chi-square and interpret results correctly. For me, it was crucial that a professional, with a background in studying and applying statistics in practice, would explain everything to me in human language, not math language.

And now a few tips for you to cut corners if you’re dealing with chi-square:

• Keep in mind that chi-square isn’t rocket science — it is doable and actually very easy if you have a really simple and detailed guideline
• The number of rows and columns can vary and your table can be much larger than mine, however, the principle remains the same — you’ll just need to do more arithmetic
• When calculating the expected value, you’ll most likely get fractions, which can confuse you, especially if you’re calculating the number of people in each category. Don’t bother about it — these calculations are intended for further calculation of chi-square

That’s all I wanted to share in my feedback story today. Hopefully, it will help you nail chi-square and get the grade you deserve! Chi-square isn’t as difficult as it may seem at first, so go ahead and break a lance!

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Of course, you can make your own success story too!

Nerdify is an AI-powered platform to quickly connect with the experience of 1000s of Personal Nerds

✨Give a try right now!

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Greetings, Nerdify fans! Did you know that a motivation letter is as important as your CV?

What’s that? Well, a job motivation letter is simply like your average cover letter. Like the latter, you have a few seconds to impress (and persuade) your recruiter with your skills, experiences, and achievements. It also requires you to demonstrate your knowledge about the company you are applying. Most importantly, you have to justify why you are the perfect candidate for the job.

• A powerful letter will surely be a ticket to your desired position in the company.
• It is one of the main requirements of the job application process. However, this depends on the company. Some firms require you to submit a motivation letter along with your resume (or C.V.).
• Hence, it is best to read the list of requirements before submitting your documents.

What Should I Include in my Motivation Letter?

• Your full name
• Your contact information (Ex: Phone number or email address)
• Address
• Name and address of the company
• Content
• Salutations (Ex: Dear sir, /Dear ma’am,)
• Complimentary close (Ex: Sincerely)
• Your signature (If needed)

Note: There’s no set number of paragraphs you can write. The ball is in your court as long as you stick to the introduction, body, and conclusion template. Stick to writing a one-page motivation letter.  

How do I Write a Motivation Letter?

1. Introspect!

Excited to apply for a job? Make a list of your skills. It can range from researching, marketing, to graphic design. Since you have no job experience, you can write about:

• Volunteer experience (School or extra-curricular activity )
• Internship

Oh yes! You should also list your core achievements and significant contributions too! As early as now, you have to tailor your motivation letter to your preferred job position. It’s just like writing a resume.

2. Look for a job (obviously)!

Read the job description and requirements carefully. Some companies accept applicants who have no work experience. Don’t apply for a job if you think you don’t have anything to market to the hiring manager. Oh yes, don’t forget to take note of the deadline.

3. Research!

Just like academic essays, you have to research the company first before drafting your motivation letter.

• What does the company do?
• What are its core tenets and values?

You can even look for reviews or company press releases if that helps you gain more knowledge about the company. You can begin drafting your motivation letter once you have an idea. Remember, recruiters, are looking for people who contribute.

4. Introduce yourself!

• Express your interest to apply for the position.
• You may tell the recruiter how you found out about the opportunity.
• State your degree, personal values, or career goals. It is best if the company’s goals align with yours.

Depending on the structure of your letter, the length of the introduction should be at least one to two paragraphs long.

• Avoid saying, “I would like to express my interest to apply for this position because I have siblings to feed.” You are begging!

5. Market!

Make yourself the solution and contributor! Narrate how your experiences and skills will be a huge help to the company. Ask yourself:

• How will my volunteer experience/internship as an events manager (or any position) be a huge advantage?

Don’t forget to mention your major achievements or contributions! There’s no need to mention everything.

6. Close with style!

Be enthusiastic even as you end your motivation letter.

• Thank the recruiter for his or her time.
• You can say that you would contact them in a week (or any day you prefer) for a follow-up.
• If you want, you can even state that you are willing to be interviewed by the recruiter.

How Should I Structure my Motivation Letter?

There are many templates you can choose to mimic or download online. This is the basic format of a motivation letter:

 

September 20, 2018

Ella Emerson

54 Junior Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia

404-610-0182

ella-emerson@mail.com

 

Felicia G. Reinoso

Hiring Manager

Company A

143 Kuhl Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Ms. Reinoso,

Company A’s dedication to research about women’s rights and gender equality has sparked my interest to apply as a junior researcher.

As a graduate of Women’s Studies in University A, this position would not only advance my career but to also to achieve my goal of assisting marginalized populations.

I have worked as an intern for Company C, wherein I was tasked to conduct surveys, analyze data, write reports, and research solutions for our partner community. My achievements prove that I can be of value to the company:

• Researched and created an effective framework to foster gender-sensitive education and teacher training in the community’s public school.
• Educated the community by conducting a focus group discussion to further raise awareness of gender discrimination and misconceptions about feminism to the community members.
• Produced a monthly research report that demonstrates the effectivity of our framework to create a more gender equal society.

I am also equipped with excellent interpersonal and intercultural skills to reach to with the members of the community. My skills and goals are respectively aligned with Company A’s core values of cultural sensitivity and gender equality.  

I would love to have an opportunity to join Company A to further improve my skills and help people. I will call you next Thursday to follow up on my application. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Ella Emerson

 

Of course, you should have someone proofread your letter before submitting it to the recruiter. Nerdify wishes you all the best in your career. Good luck!