Joining campus is a dream come true for many people. I personally grew up in the village and coming to campus meant I was coming to the city. The excitement was real and I met a few new things like ride-hailing using a mobile app in the city.
Technology is advancing and the effect it has on our day to day lives is increasing. So here are five tech basics every fresher should know.
Online Privacy
Your privacy should be 100% your responsibility. At campus you are independent and most of anything that happens to you is for you to deal with. Online privacy directly correlates with your offline privacy.
Be sure to set up very strong passwords on all your online accounts in order to prevent incidents of hacking. Be careful with who you talk to online and whichever links you click on. Install an antivirus on your computer and use a VPN when accessing sites whose security you aren’t sure of.
Word processing
University is full of assignments and course works. Most of this is supposed to be handed in typed in a readable font. You are therefore required to know a few basics regarding word processing so that your assignments are formatted well.
Word processing also helps you come up with documents such as your CV and cover letters among others. You will need to have these documents well formatted.
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Social Media
While in high school, social media was basically meant for catching up with friends and exchanging mostly slang with your peerage. Well, social media is something more than that and harbors a lot of opportunity for you.
There is an opportunity for influencer marketing that can help you make some side income to see you through your campus days. Also, you can make several connections that can be vital in your life in the future.
Therefore, you need to take social media seriously; post content that you will be proud of and make meaningful connections. Network with the people you connect with and see if you can find meaningful opportunities with them. Work on your following and engagement as this is what companies pay for when they hire you as an influencer.
The Internet
The internet is a very wide space. It can be both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on the way you use it. It can be helpful for research, social media, learning a new skill, among others.
The internet can also be very addictive, most especially if you are using it to access highly addictive data. You, therefore, need to be careful what information you take in on the internet. Know when to give it a rest and have an actual human interaction lest you fall into depression.
Data Back-Up
Since accidents do not inform you when they are about to happen, your personal data and class notes can be lost at any time. You, therefore, need to continuously back up your data and other personal information so that you can have a reserve in case anything happens to the original.
Back-up can be done offline (using an external hard drive or flash disks, etc) or online (using Google Drive, Dropbox, etc). In case you are backing up your data offline, you need to keep the flash disk or external hard drive in a very safe place.
The course you have enrolled for at University may not be Data Science or Software Engineering but there is a chance you will interact with technology while at campus. Tech isn’t just about flashy tricks and complicated stuff. Many things depend on technology to scale processes, improve efficiency, and communicate. Above, are basics about technology you need to know as you join campus.
