Northwestern students share their New Year’s resolutions and how they’ve collaborated with their peers to work towards these goals during the first week of the year.
CATE BOUVET: We are about a week into the new year, marking the beginning of what some of us hope will be a year of new habits to help us achieve our personal goals and make this year better than the last.
From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Cate Bouvet. This is Digital Diaries, a podcast capturing people’s lives in their own words.
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Cate Bouvet: According to the Pew Research Center, the majority of New Year’s resolutions focus on health, exercise or diet. This holds true at Northwestern. Michelle Ordonez, a sophomore studying computer science, wants to go to the gym more.
MICHELLE ORDONEZ: Last quarter, I would go at six in the morning and then towards the end I kind of fell off. So now I want to go whenever I tell myself I’m actually going to go, instead of staying in bed in the morning. When I was actually able to go at 6 a.m., I had the, you know, the alarms that give you a math problem to wake up, instead of just letting it ring. So, I don’t snooze it or whatever — I have to like do the math problem in order to stop the alarm, and that helps me wake up in the morning.
CATE BOUVET: Weinberg freshman Rana Aref and McCormick sophomore Thekra Alkadee also made resolutions to exercise in the morning.
THEKRA ALKADEE: My New Year’s resolution is to start doing early runs to the gym at like 6 a.m. before my classes. Have I done that? Not this week. Next week, though. Come back next week, and I’ll say yes.
I told Rana, but she doesn’t believe in me.
RANA AREF: I said I’ll go with her.
THEKRA ALKADEE: She said she’s going to go with me. We’re both gonna hold each other accountable, and that’s the plan.
CATE BOUVET: Beyond her health and exercise goals, Aref said she wants to improve her study habits and travel more. So far, she’s on track to accomplish those goals.
RANA AREF: I just want to survive the year at Northwestern and the quarter system since I’m still not fully used to it. I’m trying to be on top of my work, and I did say, also I want to travel, and I’m hoping to travel in the summer. I want to go to the Middle East.
CATE BOUVET: Weinberg freshman Nichole Jin [she/her] also has multiple resolutions she intends to keep this year.
NICHOLE JIN: One is to eat more vegetables, and the second one is to hit arms at the gym.
I did actually go to the gym and do arms yesterday for the first time like ever, so my arms are pretty sore.
In terms of vegetables, there haven’t been many good offerings yet here, so when there’s a good vegetable out, I’ll go for it.
CATE BOUVET: Like Aref and Alkadee, Jin said she sought out a friend to help her with her resolution.
NICHOLE JIN: I have a friend who, he has a really good arm workout, so he told me what to do.
CATE BOUVET: First-year Ph.D. students in mathematics, Noah Harris and Andrew Ho, are leaning on each other to accomplish their resolution this year.
NOAH HARRIS: In the math program, at the end of the year, we have to take this big series of exams — it’s kind of scary. And I think we can both agree that our New Year’s resolution is to pass those exams.
CATE BOUVET: Harris said that passing these exams will require several hours of studying and attending office hours.
Weinberg freshman Naomi Szmuilowicz said her first-ever New Year’s resolution — going to bed by 11 p.m. on school nights — will require some discipline.
NAOMI SZMUILOWICZ: Well, I’ve had two school nights. I went to bed before 11 yesterday, but tonight I’m not going to because it’s currently 11:02.
I guess I told my roommate about it, so that could be my accountability partner, but she’s not under any pressure to keep me to it.
CATE BOUVET: Whether or not these students follow their new year’s resolutions remains to be seen, but it’s clear NU students have big plans for 2025.
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CATE BOUVET: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Cate Bouvet. Thanks for listening to another episode of Digital Diaries. This episode was reported and produced by me.
The Audio Editor of The Daily Northwestern is Anavi Prakash. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.
Our theme music is “Falaal” by Blue Dot Sessions, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.
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