Getting acquainted with the school routine can be quite a hassle especially after a summer filled with all the time is the world to go on adventures, make friends and SLEEP. Now, I’m dealing with all the bills in the world to pay, a significant decrease in social life, and delayed blogs for wonderfully dedicated readers. Increasing responsibilities means increasing stress, but I’ve got a couple things figured and hopefully my advice will help you manage and prioritize what you put our valuable time towards – as we all know in Auburn EVERY SECOND COUNTS.
All college students do three things: go to class/study, sleep and make mistakes (big and small). When I found myself pressed for time no matter what the occasion, I realized I either needed to take some things off my plate or use my time more efficiently. Being a COSAM student, I used math to manage my time (it’s all numbers right?). I started with the number of hours in a week ____ hours. And made sure I had time for sleep, because it’s essential for just about everything. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/02/sleep-health-benefits-_n_817803.html> Then, I took out time for classes, because I actually go to all my classes for the chance to get extra credit or tips for the next exam. I work a lot to keep my living space livable, so those hours were taken out of my week as well. Luckily, most of my extracurricular is involved with my job, so I didn’t need to take out to much time for that. And finally study time.
Study time can become an equation full of logarithms and funny letters, but as a freshman I was told to study 2 hours for every hour I spent in class. That may work for some, but I learned something much more efficient from my academic coach: Pick a goal of how many hours you want to put into studying a week then pick a day to rest (from studying if not everything else). I pick my busiest day of the week to take a break from studying, which is typically Saturdays if it’s a home game. Another tip my coach gave me which helps make study time more efficient and personally keeps my brain from dying is study break intervals. I can work out problems and answer questions for hours at a time until the assigned set is done, but when it comes to reading science books, I get worn out easily. When I have a difficult reading assignment, I read for 20 mintues then find something to do other than look at that book for 10 and repeat until either the chapter is over or until my study time is over. This has kept me sane through many long seemingly unnecessary readings. (Bonus tip: if you go to the end of the chapter and there are questions, you can typically learn everything thoroughly if you know the complete answers to these).
After getting my life together, I found I had more hours than I thought to do the inevitable: MESS UP. Mistakes like going to campus without a lab folder or heaven forbid you forget your umbrella on a monsoon day, which is typical on the plains (did you remember your galoshes?? I hate having wet feet). Having time open for mistakes lifted the biggest weight off my chest, because I ALWAYS felt pressed for time. Luckily nothing needed to be taken out of my daily activities, and actually found time to get back in the gym. Without feeling like I needed to be doing something every minute of every day really helped with the stress levels and now living is noticeably easier each day. When I mess up, I don’t panic; I just take a deep breath, buckle down and fix it.
Making your schedule fit you is an important skill to have throughout life. Perhaps you study better late at night or you only need five hours of sleep, the most important thing is that your heart isn’t racing every moment of every day – who wants high blood pressure anyways? <http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/effects-of-stress-on-your-body>