This seems like great advice about how to maximise EAGs! I do think many attendees, not just students, should prepare more ideally.
If you happen to be a particularly anxious or perfectionist person, please don’t panic if you can’t spend 15-20 hours on this in the next 10 days (or before any EAG). It’s great that Sam included the bit about ratios if you’re time constrained—try to take that to heart and do some prep rather than doing no prep because you feel overwhelmed. People who do less prep still often get a lot of value out of EAG.
It’s good to push yourself a to get the most out of EAG that you can, just be sensible about what the ‘you can’ bit means for you, so that it doesn’t come at the cost of - being absolutely shattered and unable to attend on the Sunday - being so tired that you have meaningfully worse conversations as a result, or accidentally hurt someone’s feelings - missing important uni deadlines - being overly caffeinated and feeling unwell or very anxious - whatever the failure mode might be for you
Lots of different factors might mean you want to pace yourself at EAG a bit more, perhaps if you’re more introverted, if you’re operating in a second language you don’t normally spend all day in, if you’ve got family responsibilities, (mental) health stuff, or you’re jet lagged.
But yeah, overall I think it’s really good advice that a lot of maximising EAG is in the prep, and glad this post is out there. Thanks for writing this, Sam!
This seems like great advice about how to maximise EAGs! I do think many attendees, not just students, should prepare more ideally.
If you happen to be a particularly anxious or perfectionist person, please don’t panic if you can’t spend 15-20 hours on this in the next 10 days (or before any EAG). It’s great that Sam included the bit about ratios if you’re time constrained—try to take that to heart and do some prep rather than doing no prep because you feel overwhelmed. People who do less prep still often get a lot of value out of EAG.
It’s good to push yourself a to get the most out of EAG that you can, just be sensible about what the ‘you can’ bit means for you, so that it doesn’t come at the cost of
- being absolutely shattered and unable to attend on the Sunday
- being so tired that you have meaningfully worse conversations as a result, or accidentally hurt someone’s feelings
- missing important uni deadlines
- being overly caffeinated and feeling unwell or very anxious
- whatever the failure mode might be for you
Lots of different factors might mean you want to pace yourself at EAG a bit more, perhaps if you’re more introverted, if you’re operating in a second language you don’t normally spend all day in, if you’ve got family responsibilities, (mental) health stuff, or you’re jet lagged.
But yeah, overall I think it’s really good advice that a lot of maximising EAG is in the prep, and glad this post is out there. Thanks for writing this, Sam!