As one quickly learns, college is primarily a balancing act. Suddenly you are expected to maintain your grades, stay healthy, and make a new life for yourself. There will never be enough hours in the day, but hopefully these quick tips can ease the time crunch.
First, find a system that helps you keep track of anything important going on from breaks to assignments to midterms. I recommend making a calendar. By keeping all of my important dates and assignments in one place, there is less room for mistakes. I carry a day planner with me at all times and each morning, I write my schedule for the day on a big dry erase board. Somehow I still miss the occasional Spanish worksheet, but for the most part, this has been fool proof for me. My roommate on the other hand uses color coded sticky notes; green for homework assignments; pink for projects; orange for important dates. Then she papers her desk with them. Everybody has a different way to go about it, but organization is a key component to maintaining balance.
Next, take advantage of office hours. They are an asset. It may seem counter productive to cut extra time out of your day to go ramble on with a professor, but in reality talking over upcoming essays and assignments with him or her will only expedite the completion process. Not to mention, professors like to see that you’re invested in the class! A little extra attention can go a long way. If you build a nice repertoire, those relationships can be great connections and recommendations for future internships and job opportunities.
Next is the issue of making time to keep in shape while keeping on top of classwork. Everybody loves FitRec, but sometimes there just isn’t time to make it to the gym (especially for those east campus residents.) But instead of skipping a workout altogether, find some dorm room workouts on sites like Pinterest or Tumblr. For me personally, the Undressed Skeleton blog has become my college fitness bible. Not to mention, this blogger includes dorm room recipes that never require anything more than a microfridge. This leads to my next tip. Everyone has the occasional late night snack binge, but keep healthy food rather than your typical junk food. It will at least curve your appetite and you don’t have to feel so guilty.
Finally don’t procrastinate. This is a dangerous custom that many fall under, but fight the urge! If you get your work done now rather than later, you will only have more time later. So enough procrastinating by reading this blog post, go get to work!
