Are you a first Arts student at UCC? Do you want to learn more about how to settle into college life and increase your chances of study success, while meeting new fellow first Arts students?

In the “Everyday Matters: Healthy Habits for University Life” digital badge you will explore some practical everyday things, based on the latest scientific research, that you can say and do to support yourself as much as possible during this time of change and establish healthy habits and routines for your university lifestyle, enhancing your successful transition into and through higher education.

This digital badge will explore how you spend your time across study/work, leisure, self-care and sleep and cultivate positive habits of mind including mindful self-compassion, growth mindset and joy & gratitude. Participants will learn about brain and body health, and how to create and maintain daily habits and routines that support physical and emotional wellbeing for learning and life.  

The “Everyday Matters: Healthy Habits for University Life” digital badge will be delivered over 8 sessions, each one hour duration.

About the Facilitator:

The content for this programme has been developed by Dr. Eithne Hunt who has trialled the materials with second level and third level students and presented locally and nationally on this work. It is underpinned by her professional qualification as an occupational therapist, her previous clinical work with adolescents and young adults in mental health services, her extensive academic experiencing teaching young people about daily activities and wellbeing; her own research on adolescent time use and wellbeing; her training in mindfulness with children and adolescents, and mindfulness based stress reduction with teens (MBSR-T); and her outreach work designing and delivering ‘Everyday Matters’ and ‘Older & Wiser’ training to young people, parents, teachers and health professionals.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Apply knowledge from published research to participant’s own life
2. Analyse personal patterns of time use including study/work, leisure, self-care and sleep
3. Develop positive habits of mind (mindful self-compassion, growth mindset, joy & gratitude)
4. Use a strategy for creating and maintaining healthy time use habits and habits of mind 
    

The weekly themes are:

• Brain development and habit formation
• Sleep
• Self-care
• Leisure
• Study & Work
• Self-compassion
• Growth Mindset
• Joy & Gratitude  

Session Dates:

Please note - All sessions take place in the Skills Centre, basement of Boole Library. Just follow the yellow footprints!

• Session 1:Wednesday 25th September, 1pm.
• Session 2:Wednesday 2nd October, 1pm.
• Session 3:Wednesday 9th October, 1pm.
• Session 4:Wednesday 16th October, 1pm.
• Session 5:Wednesday 23rd October, 1pm.
• Session 6:Wednesday 30th October, 1pm.
• Session 7:Wednesday 6th November, 1pm.
• Session 8:Wednesday 13th November, 1pm.

This programme is recurring every Wednesday at 1pm, beginning the 25th of September and will run for 8 weeks. There will be 8 x 1 hour sessions, with additional hours for reading, watching videos, and preparing your short reflective paper at the end of the programme. Learner effort guideline is about 18 hours. Materials will be available on Canvas.

Obtaining your Digital Badge Micro-credential:

You will need to attend 5 of the 8 sessions as a minimum, but hopefully you’ll be able to make it to each session! In that way you will get the most out of it. You will be required to submit a short reflective account of your learning from the digital badge. The word length will be 500 words. You will be asked to reflect on your most significant learning from the programme using Rolfe's (2001) reflective model questions: what? so what? now what?

To book your place* in “Everyday Matters: Healthy Habits for University Life" Digital Badge, please fill out the booking form below!

*Please note, this semester thirty places will be offered on a first come first served basis. Please do think about if you are able to commit the time to the 8 weeks.