It’s been a hell of a year for Nerdify. We’ve helped a record number of students this year and we’ve doubled in size (hooray!). But the New Year is on the horizon… Which brings us to the question of how we can celebrate it? Certainly, most of us will be celebrating it with our friends and family, but what if you want to do something special this year?
We’ve created a list of five creative ways how you can celebrate this New Year, check it out, maybe there’s something in this list that you may wanna try 😉

1. Visit real Santa

That means going to Finland. Yes, that’s not exactly a half an hour ride from your house, but bear with me, there are lots of awesome things you can do once you get there.

Finland has a fantastic national travel-website that has already collected all the main adventures Finland is famous about:

* You can go on a husky ride through the snowy forest (one of our Nerds actually did that – said it’s super cold, so make sure you bring warm clothes and some vodka with you. You gonna need it).
* You can check out beautiful auroras in the night sky (those are free of charge, thank you solar winds, yay!)
* You can go Gold panning (this is a perfect activity for kids – they get to collect their own GOLD, how cool is that?!).
* Cruise on an Icebreaker (and see real polar bears on little icebergs, oh… so cute 🙂
* And, obviously – see the real Santa Claus (that’s what New Year is all about, right?)
And much more actually. In Finland, you truly feel special during the New Year. You indeed think that miracles can happen during this special night, it’s absolutely magical.

2. Celebrate New Year following traditions from another country.

Just a few examples for you, of the crazy shenanigans people do across the world during the New Years Eve:

* In Burma people splash buckets of water on each other to “start New Year with a clean soul”. They certainly can do that in Burma, because it is quite hot during the New Year. I suspect that wouldn’t really work somewhere in Canada, now would it? 😉
* In Russia, people write their wishes on a piece of paper, then set it on fire in a glass. When only ashes remain – they pour champagne into the glass and drink it “bottoms up” before midnight. That way your wish will come true in the following year. For additional tips on how to “Party Like a Russian” we suggest you check out the Robbie Williams video-guide.
* In Italy, Argentina and Bolivia it is a common tradition to wear colorful underwear. It is believed that it will bring luck, love and prosperity to the one who’s wearing either red, pink or yellow underwear 🙂 What can we say, those folks are definitely not boring 🙂
* In South Africa and Peru, people tend to get more violent. In Johannesburg, South Africa, it is common to throw old appliances out of the window. That way locals “step into the new year leaving old things behind”. While in Peru it is common to have a fist fight with a person you have a grudge on. That way you can “wipe the slate clean” before the New Year.

Just make sure none of these local traditions get you in jail. As far as we can tell, no country has a tradition celebrating New Year’s Eve in jail 🙂

3. Be real Santa Claus.

Why not create some miracles yourself? You can be the master of the night by putting on a Santa Claus costume and grabbing a red bag full of goodies. Better still – gather a group of like-minded crazy people who will do a flash mob of Santas in the center of the city. You can build a huge snowman and give away presents and sweets to passers-by or baking a cookie that’s gonna crush the Guinness world record. Let your imagination go wild!

4. Outdoors

Being outdoors on the New Year’s Eve is also exciting. Imagine skiing in the mountains during the night.. Isn’t it magical? Alternatively, you can go full bananas and go camping in the forest. Greeting the New Year under the stars with a glass of champagne and a loved one. Romantic… but also quite chilly so make sure you have a heating pad with you or something. Getting a cold is not part of the plan here!

5. Do some charity-work

New Year is also a great time to think about those who are less fortunate than we are. What kind of a miracle would it be, if you could dress as a Santa and visit a local orphanage and give presents or sweets to the ones in need. Donate to the homeless shelter. Or visit a local animal shelter and adopt a puppy.

Remember, New Year is the time of miracles. It’s the only time when the whole world is celebrating, so why not do something special this time? 😉

Nerdify will be back with you next year to continue doing what it does best – helping students achieve their academic goals all across the world. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you!

Nerdify is hearing bells ringing around the country again as students go back to schools and colleges.

This can be an exciting time of year, but sometimes a stressful and overwhelming one too. That’s why our Personal Nerds have compiled some awesome tips for heading back to your studies stress-free!

And don’t forget, if you need extra support, Nerdify is always standing by and only a message away!

1. Have your timetable and agenda ready!

Nothing will put a downer on your first day back at a college like turning up and having no idea where you’re supposed to go and at what time a certain class starts. Homework, lessons, extra activities and different events can be quite overwhelming so make sure you have a timetable that’s regularly updated and properly plans your activities. Managing your time is critical to your happiness and academic success! By the way, you can ask Nerdify folks to remind you about important stuff like homework, exams, workshops.

2. Be prepared with the right supplies and books.

If your school or college doesn’t supply enough of the right materials (let’s face it, do they ever?) then make sure you’re well-equipped for your first day back. Having the right supplies can not only help you to be more prepared and organized but stationary is also fun! Well, we think so at least. Also, nobody likes the person in their class who is always asking to borrow a pen!

3. Focus on the academic tasks first!

Everyone can slip into procrastination mode and sometimes prioritize their social activities and hobbies over their studies. But this can have stressful repercussions if we allow it to happen too often, especially in the first few weeks of term when getting ahead and staying ahead is important. Remember, if you need extra help so you can spend more time on fun activities then Nerdify is standing by to help you out with any of your tasks and assignments!

4. Write down your academic goals for the term or year.

As with everything in life, it’s so important to set yourself tangible goals and milestones. We all need something to strive towards, otherwise, it can often feel like our endless work has no real destination or result. Writing down your goals will allow you to properly manage your time and plan your strategy for reaching them. To do lists have been proven to be a powerful driving, motivating force!

5. Learn what type of learner you are!

If you have high expectations for yourself during this academic term (and why shouldn’t you!) it could be really important for you to work out what kind of learner you are. And we don’t mean whether you’re a slow learner or a fast one, or anything like that. But how do you better learn? What’s your process? Maybe you’re more auditory and need music and speeches. Perhaps you’re more of a visual learner that needs pictures and writing or maybe you’re vocal and need to talk about subjects and write notes to better retain the information.

And there we have it: 5 top tips from our Personal Nerds on how to get the most out of your first days and weeks back at school. Don’t forget to drop us a message if you need extra advice or support!

It has been a packed weekend, hasn’t it? Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday (Nerdify’s marketing has been busy) – lots of holidays smashed together in such a short period of time. We do hope these few days have been a blast for you, guys 🙂

Now, it’s time to get Nerdy again 🙂 We thought it would be a good idea to tell you some secrets behind the success of the biggest names in the tech industry today. How did people like Jeff Bezos (who’s fortune recently surpassed $100 billion) and Steve Jobs manage to build such large companies?

We have done a thorough investigation and here are our findings. These are general rules that can be applied pretty much everywhere, no matter what you want to do in life.

Perseverance and passion

These 2 points have been cited by everyone – Bezos, Jobs, Obama, Buffet and many others; and we think these are literally the most important factors for success – having a passion for what you do and having determination and tenacity to work hard for a sustained period of time. These two go hand in hand because it’s passion that gives birth to perseverance.

As Steve Jobs once said – “it’s so hard (to create anything) that if you don’t have passion, any rational person would give up. You have to work really hard for a sustained period of time. And if you don’t love it, eventually you are going to give up.” And that’s what happens to most people. Lot’s of people start projects/businesses, but eventually, a good chunk of them give up, when problems start piling up on their desks.

Jeff Bezos, when setting up his private spaceflight company Blue Origin gave it the following motto – “Gradtim Ferociter” which means “Step by step ferociously”. This is how he explains statement: “You can’t skip steps, you have to put one foot in front of the other, things take time, there are no shortcuts”. People who persevere, eventually get sh*t done, which ultimately leads to success.

Don’t be afraid to fail

This is a very popular reason why people don’t want to start new projects/ventures – they are afraid that they will fail; they are afraid that people will judge them as a failure if they don’t succeed on their first try.

The reality is different, however – people who never fail, are the ones who never try anything. In fact, most successful entrepreneurs in the world have failed a lot before they’ve achieved great success.

Take Mark Zuckerberg for example. He said: “I have made so many mistakes any mistake you can think of, I’ve made it. But if you’re building a product that people love, you can make a lot of mistakes”. Today Facebook is worth more than $500 bn. Not bad for a “made all the mistakes you can think of” scenario, right?

Jeff Bezos said, “I’ve made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon”. His reasoning is that continuous experiments (bold bets as he calls them) will not only offset any losses you make from failures but will eventually lead to high profits (because you would have acquired so much learning and knowledge from your failures). Companies that don’t promote experiments and are not prepared to fail from time to time, will eventually die. The important part is to learn from your mistakes.

Everything around you was built by the same people as you are

Steve Jobs once said: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again”, meaning that you don’t have to be special to act – you just need to have the will to get the job done 🙂

Nerdify’s Conclusion:

• The core of success is perseverance -> being able to work hard and staying focused on achieving your goal.
• In order to do that for a sustained period of time – you have to love what you do, or at least have an inner fire in you that disagrees with the status quo that keeps pushing you forward.
• Don’t be afraid to fail, it’s all part of the learning process.
• Finally – everything around is built by the same people as you are. You are just as good and as capable.

Good luck, guys! 😉