SLOP1521#

Introduction to Life: Foundations of Being a Person

Week 1 — Orientation

Three exit surveys, anonymised#

• learned laundry from a video the night before moving out
• had never had to introduce themselves to a stranger
• thought “adulting” was a joke until it wasn’t

Every year, the same handful of gaps.

Today: diagnostic only#

Nothing is taught yet. Only baselined.

Every topic this semester predicts things that matter well beyond university.

What’s ahead#

• How this course works
• How it’s assessed
• The course’s policies
• Your starting point

Definitions#

• Baseline (noun) — a starting measurement against which later change is compared.
• Cohort (noun) — the group of students undertaking this course together, for statistical and moral-support purposes.
• Habit (noun) — a regular behaviour or routine done automatically, with little or no conscious thought.
• Schedule (noun) — a plan listing activities and the specific times they happen.

Key point 1 — How the week fits together#

The lecture explains why. The lab gives you a go at it. The reflection, due before the next lecture, makes it personal and ongoing.

Check-in: If you only ever came to labs and skipped lectures, which part of this course would you be missing entirely?

Key point 2 — How the course is assessed#

Check-in: Which single assessment is worth the most of your final grade?

Key point 3 — Staff#

• Cosima Adjei — Convenor. Behavioural-adherence researcher; runs an eleven-year longitudinal study of forty thousand New Year’s resolutions.
• Noor Kalantari — Tutor, Conversation and Dating. Runs the small-talk, friendship and dating labs.
• Petra Lindqvist — Tutor, Nutrition Systems and Domestic Logistics. Runs the sleep, nutrition and budgeting labs.
• Thaddeus Vrell — Tutor, Textile Care and Garment Longevity. Runs the fashion and laundry labs.

Key point 4 — Policies#

Submissions are paper-based, handed to the convenor’s office or a tutor. Email is accepted only for extenuating circumstances. No laptops or screens in any lab, ever.

Check-in: Under what circumstance is emailing your submission actually allowed?

Key point 5 — Why these skills, and why now#

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.

Average 66 days to form a habit (range 18–254).

Check-in: Show of hands — who's tried to build a new habit in under a week and given up? That's what this study explains.

Key point 6 — The “how,” not just the “why”#

Duration alone doesn’t explain who makes it and who quietly stops. Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.

Reword the goal: not “I’ll shower more,” but “when I get back from the gym, I will shower before I sit down.” That single change roughly doubles the odds it actually happens. A real plan needs a time, not an intention.

Check-in: Rewrite one of your own vague goals as an if-then plan with a stated time.

Key point 7 — Your starting point#

Before the self-assessment: look at your own desk. If its usable surface has quietly become a filing system for things you’ll deal with later, that’s not a character flaw — it’s the first data point.

The Week 1 lab runs the Starting Point Check: an honest self-assessment across the course’s five recurring topics — hygiene, dress, sleep, conversation, and money — scored against what you actually do rather than what you’d like to do.

Check-in: Looking at your own desk right now, is its usable surface storage or workspace?

In-lecture activity#

Silent, anonymous show of hands: who has a regular laundry schedule? A regular bedtime? Has spoken to a stranger this week?

No discussion — just a visible spread across the room, to be revisited in Week 12.

Conclusion#

This course treats these skills as real, teachable, and assessed — and the lecture, lab, and reflection each do distinct, complementary work.

You now know how the course runs, how it’s assessed, its policies, and where you’re starting.

Coming up: this week’s lab (Triage and the Starting Point Check).

This week’s reflection#

Due 12:00 Tuesday of week 2:

Name one habit you’re currently running unmonitored — something you do, or don’t do, that you’ve stopped noticing — and describe what it would take to pay attention to it properly for a week.

References#

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.

Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.