User: GC
Q: What are some sort of things that you need to memorize.
A: HW assignments, events that are coming up, birthdays, personal projects.
Q: What’s included in homework assignments?
A: Personal projects – little things that I have to do on the side. And stuff that I have to
work on for the website that I work for.
Q: Do you schedule individual blocks?
A: No
Planner:
When it gets closer to the actual day he writes it in CAPS. He “carries over” assignment.
Q: When you go back into your planner to look for what you need to do, what do you do?
A: I checked off appointments and things I have to do and I look at other events that are
to come. I usually only look ahead up to the weekend.
Q: Do you usually use the calendar?
A: No
Q: Notes section
A: Random quips from friends that I want to remember and websites that I want to check
out. There’s nothing that is actually related to school.
[He’s been using this planner for a year]
Q: What are the different symbols?
A: Checkmarks – completed, diagonal/slash – I didn’t do it yet, arrows – things that need
to stand out, x-didn’t do it
Q: Do you use this planner for shopping lists?
A: Usually shopping notes are not included in the planner but on a random sheet of paper.
Q: Do you use anything else besides this planner to keep track of things to do?
A: I usually doodle on post-it’s or a scrap of paper. Sometimes I use notepad and save it
as a .txt.
Q: So it’s basically a rolling to-do list
A: Yeah
Q: There are things in different colors.
A: When I have different colored pens I make use of it but usually I don’t color code it.
Q: Do you have a wall calendar?
A: Yes but I don’t use it. I find it easier to plan things on a weekly basis rather than a
monthly basis.
Q: Say at the beginning of the quarter you get all of your homework due dates would you
write them all down?
A: Probably in two month increments. I look online for the class syllabus.
Q: Are there any reminders that you don’t write down on your own and you just count on
others to remind you?
A: Not that I can think of.
Q: When you’re trying to coordinate something with another student, what’s the process?
Think of the last time you arranged that.
A: Usually it’s a week before so I give myself a week’s time to clear my schedule. We
will either bump into each other beforehand to arrange it or call each other. Sometimes I
use facebook too, but I usually use my cell phone.
Q: Advantages of facebook?
A: People check their messages more reliably on facebook than on voicemail.
Q:”Atu Gawande – Complications” what is this?
A: It’s a book I wanted to read. I probably didn’t get to read it because it wasn’t salient
enough. (??) When something is spaced it probably means something that is totally
unrelated.
Q: What are you going to do this afternoon?
A: Going to the post office, skipping two discussions.
Q: How do you know that?
A: I got a phone call two hours that said I needed to show up to work today. I looked at
my schedule this morning and realized that I can afford to skip discussion.
Q: What are you doing tomorrow?
A: Wake up, go to o-chem lab, lunch, grocery run, watch House.
Q: After House what are you going to do?
A: [refers to planner] Probably study for my quiz on Thursday.
Q: How did you decide that?
A: Because there’s nothing due on Wednesday.
Q: So you do a lot of prioritizing in your head?
A: Yes.
Q: How often do you return to your planner each day?
A: Ridiculously often, probably in every class.
Q: When was the last time?
A: An hour ago. I looked at it because the professor wrote announcements on the board.
Q: Did you use it for any other uses?
A: No
Q: Do you ever go to TA/office hours?
A: once in a blue moon
Q: If you do, how do you go about finding out where it is?
A: In the beginning of the quarter I always write it down in my school notes.
Q: If you wanted to meet up with a professor but your schedule didn’t coincide what do
you do?
A: E-mail
Q: What clubs are you in?
A: Guardian, mentoring.
Q: Tell me about your last club meeting and how you remembered to go.
A: I remember getting an e-mail. I wrote it down on my planner.
Q: As for mentoring and the guardian, do you ever schedule meetings that they go to?
A: No
Q: How do you feel about university events?
A: Since I work at the guardian, I help put together the campus calendar so most of the
stuff I hear from there. Facebook has a lot of them but I don’t look at them anymore.
Q: Do you look at peg? What do you look at?
A: Yes, movie listings. I used to just have Peg folded open so I could glance at it.
Q: What about Artpower events?
A: I go to the events. Those events I write down because you actually need to get tickets
for. I write down that I need to get tickets.
Q: Can you think of a time when you bought tickets successfully?
A: Tickets for David Sedaris – it was three weeks before the event. It just happened to be
in my mind.
Q: Do you read the flyers on library walk?
A: I glance at them.
Q: Are they useful?
A: Yes, but I don’t follow through. I might have written something down but I don’t
follow through.
Q: Do you use tritonlink’s class planner? How do you use that?
A: Yes. I leave it on my binder. Within the first week I have all my classes. Then I start
filling out work (in pencil).
Q: Do you go back and edit it and print it out again?
A: I usually do. This time I didn’t because my schedule always changes. This is my 2nd or
3rd tritonlink weekly class calendar.
Q: Do you use the beta class planner?
A: I tried once but it’s not very useful.
Q: What’s your impression on what it does?
A: It’s the same thing as this (tritonlink calendar) but it’s generally useful but I found the
interface to be a little “clonky”.
Q: Were there any limitations?
A: I don’t remember seeing where I can put in appointment times, not just classes.
Q: Is there anything you want to change about tritonlink?
A: It’s ugly. There was another class planner that was shut down that was shut down
because it was a “danger to the database”. It cleaned things up for you and had a good
format. One thing that I like from Berkeley’s planner is that the planner maps where the
classes are and it tells you how many minutes it takes to travel.
Q: Do you usually keep location in mind?
A: Usually I don’t think about it until it gets closer to school starting. Sometimes it can’t
be helped.
Q: Do you ever use tritonlink as a source for finding events?
A: No, but I know you can do that on there. For me I use facebook or through the
newspaper at work (his job).
Q: Google calendar – have you looked at it?
A: I like it. I tried to replicate the class schedule when tritonlink’s was down.
Q: You basically use it to schedule static events?
A: Yes
Q: Do you refer back to gcal frequently?
A: Not really.
Q: Did you use anything before the planner?
A: No I’ve been using a planner since grade school.
Q: Say it’s the beginning of the quarter and all of your professors just gave you the dates
of all your midterms. What do you do with this information?
A: Before this quarter I wouldn’t write them down until a few weeks before the midterm.
Now I write them when I find out the dates.
Q: What do you use to plan your schedule before you register for classes? Have you used
the schedule planner?
A: I have the four year plan from the guidance office and I look at my degree audit. I start
scheduling things by hand before I put it in. I write the schedules down first.
Q: Can you tell me about the time when you had trouble trying to find a particular event?
A: When the location of something changed I wasn’t informed of it until a few hours
before. But then that was just a scramble into your e-mail.
Q: Can you tell me about how you put events into your calendar for the guardian?
A: By e-mail, we dig stuff up from the ucsd calendar, university centers usually sends out
the rest for us, campus orgs puts some stuff in there.