UiA Bibliotek Blog

Adaptability

Adaptability means cognitive, behavioral, and emotional adjustment in the face of change, new experiences, and uncertainty. Adaptable students are  better able to exercise control over their environment and resources and thereby avoid elements that can lead to failure, like anxiety, uncertainty, and procrastination. This helps to develop the quality of a student’s life, both personally and academically.  The COVID-19 pandemic certainly tested every student’s capacity to adjust to disruption. The switch to remote learning involved huge change and uncertainty. Part of our new normal is the increasing presence of online learning.

Here are some tips that can help you become more adaptable as a student:

1. Get into completely different social activities
   1. One of the best ways of putting this mindset into practice is to start meeting people outside your circle. Universities have built inmechanisms of doing this in the form of student societies.
2. Challenge yourself through competition
   1. Getting into some competitive events is a great way to test your mettle and improve your adaptability.
3. Develop your creativity
   1. Seek advice and inspiration from others.
   2. Learn new innovative thinking methods.
4. Actively seek academic opportunities to adapt
   1. Try pushing yourself to use different methods of problemsolving in familiar contexts.
5. Learn from your surroundings through active observation
   1. An active observer can extract knowledge from the world simply by thinking about what they’re seeing.

How do you adapt to new situations?