It's just about midterm season on my campus right now, and I can say from personal experience, that the stress level is running high all around. And if you are also feeling this way then in this week's post I am going to give you some tips on how to stay calm during midterms.
1. Sleep This may not seem important in the moment when you have a lot of midterms to study for, but in order for you to be able to study at your maximum efficiency, sleep should be a priority. According to the National Sleep Foundation, young adults should be getting about 7-9 hours of sleep per night. 2. Meditation Even five minutes of meditation today can reduce stress and make you feel calmer. So maybe, before an exam, check in with yourself and how you are feeling and do a quick meditation beforehand so that you feel more relaxed. 3. Listening to music Listening to music is one of my go-to tips for staying clam in any situation. I think that music is just a great way to relax your mind for a bit and focus on the music itself (and not the never ending list of things that you need to study for). 4. Exercise Exercise is very important as well. Usually when I am tensed up and stressed about something, I have found that exercise helps me to feel relaxed. But in the moment, it seems hard to skip a 30 minute study session just to exercise. However, doing physical activity, can help you in the long run. Because, when you need to finally sit down and study then you will be able to focus better on what you need to study. 5. Have a plan Lastly, this is by far the most important, is to plan! If you plan out a head of time what your study schedule will look like for midterms and anticipate the unexpected you should feel significantly calmer during midterms. I hope that these tips will be helpful in keeping you calm during midterms. For more tips on how to de-stress during the semester, see this post! ~Stephanie
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As winter break comes to a close for us college students, it is time to start thinking about the coming semester. Being in college for a while now has made me more prepared for the coming semester, especially the spring because it is a much shorter time frame than summer break. If I am being completely honest here, I really try to prepare at least two weeks before the semester starts in order to prepare. Why? You may ask? It is not because I am reading textbooks ahead of time or perusing over the syllabus (if I get it early). Most of the work that goes into preparing for the new semester has to do with the behind the scenes work that goes into making my semester go as smoothly as possible. In this post, I am going to show you five ways in order to make that happen.
1. Print out your schedule This is probably the easiest, but the most crucial tip because printing out your schedule gives you an overall view in how your schedule is going to look like for the semester. Decide to take the 5 minutes out of your day to print out your schedule and keep it somewhere you can find it (because you are going to need it later). Or, if you don't want to waste any ink printing it out, another great option is to write it down in your planner or agenda so that it is easily accessible and you can easily reference it. 2. Buy your books (two weeks in advance) If you've been in college for a while, I'm sure you've heard to wait to buy your textbooks until the first day of classes just to be sure that the professor assigns the right textbook or just in case anything changes on the first day of classes. My opinion is that if you find out which books you need from your classes from either the bookstore or the professor themselves, just buy them early. If it is the wrong textbook, you can always return it. There is nothing worse than arriving to class the first day, receiving an assignment to read x amount of chapters and not having the book. However, if you absolutely have to wait until the first day, maybe ask the professor if they could put up the first couple chapters in your school's portal while you are waiting for your textbook. If there is more than one student like this (and usually there is) the professor might be more inclined to do this. 3. Set goals/ intentions Before the semester begins I think that it is very important to set goals or intentions for the semester. Without setting goals and/or intentions you may run the risk of falling behind on your classes, not having your time managed, and you might be more stressed out. Make it a point at the beginning of each semester to write out at least one goal for every class. At the beginning of the semester, evaluate your classes try to see which ones seem more challenging than others, and based off of this, set some goals/intentions. For example, one goal can be for my Statistics class that I will go and see the professor before every exam to make sure I have and understand all of the information that will be on the test. Although this is something relatively simple, I think that it can definitely change the course of how your semester goes by setting goals. 4. Maintain healthy habits This is probably the tip that gets taken for granted the most! (well, at least for me) It is so important to maintain healthy habits such as exercising, eating right, and also getting enough sleep. When you're in college it is so easy to brush off these things for the sake of academics. From my own personal experience, I have skipped many workout sessions and just used snacks as a source of fuel and energy. This really took a toll on my physical and mental health. So before the semester begins, take a look at your schedule (see point #1) and make healthy habits (i.e. exercise, sleep, and healthy meals) a PRIORITY. If you don't make these things a priority your schedule will take control of you and your time and you could find yourself burnt out by the amount of stress. 5. Put everything into your calendar/agenda Referring back to point #1 again, once you have your schedule put all the dates and times in your planner. Then put in dates for extra-curricular activities, volunteer/work hours, upcoming events you plan to attend, and also those healthy habits. Once you have all of these dates set and planned in your calendar it will be much easier to see what you have coming up. This way you won't double book yourself for a meeting with your advisor that interferes with one of your classes. So that's it! These are five easy ways to prepare for the upcoming semester. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below on what kind of tips you have in order to prepare for the semester. ~Stephanie I have been a commuter student since I started college. But what are commuter students? (you might ask) Commuter students are those that do not live on campus, but travel to school from their residence. The reason that I am a commuter is partly due to the fact that A) I didn't go to a college with housing as a freshman and sophomore and B) the college that I currently go to is not that far from where I live, so it didn't make sense to have on campus. So whether you drive to school or take the bus, in this post I am going to lay out some essentials for every commuter student. (besides the obvious things like keys, unless you tend to forget those things and the supplies that you will use in class)
1. Headphones Whether you are trying to listen to the latest podcast, or need a little quiet, zen time, this is an essential. 2. Book (preferably one that is fun to read) With all of the readings that professors give us, it's nice to just relax with a good book that you won't be graded on. 3. Water bottle No explanation necessary.. 4. Lunch/money for food Since you are most likely not on a meal plan if you are a commuter, it's good to bring a lunch with you (or some money for food) so that you aren't starving during class. 5. Small notebook (to jot down notes/ideas) I find this helpful especially when I have a random thought that pops in my head and I want to remember it. But this can be used for anything. 6. Extra clothes (for just in case or going to the gym) I always bring extra clothes with me just in case I have some extra time and I want to go to the gym. 7. Umbrella Since I prefer to not get rained on, (it rains pretty infrequently where I live) I always have an umbrella just in case. 8. Emergency cash Again, no explanation necessary. This can really help you when the unexpected happens. (you'll thank me later) 9. Canvas bag/tote I find this helpful in case you need to carry something extra that won't fit in your backpack. 10. Extra snacks Late night study sessions at the library happen, do yourself a favor and pack some extra snacks so that you don't starve. I realize that elements of this list might be different for every student, and that is okay! You should modify this list depending on your commute to school (whether it be by car or public transportation). I typically take public transportation, so these are the items that are useful to me. I hoped that this list helped give you some ideas on what to bring with you if you are a commuter student. If you are a commuter student, let me know some of the essentials that you always carry around with you. If you are in college right now then I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from. After my first week of college I felt like I was not prepared at all. It was all a learning experience for me during that time (and even now) so now I am going to tell you what I wish I knew before going to college, and why it would have helped. 1. Using Rate My Professors Can I just say that I love rate my professors, (I'm sure they don't, but I do ;). Going into college I wish I knew about this website because I could have avoided some (for a lack of a better word) taxing professors. In my first semester of college, my advisor just showed me some courses to take, and asked me which times I wanted to take them. However; I was not told which professor I was getting until I saw my schedule. That would have saved me a lot of stress if I could have chosen a different professor for some of my classes. Since using this website after my first semester, I still consider it to be very helpful in choosing my professors. There has only been one professor that I've had that had good ratings on RMP but that I didn't really like. Overall Rate My Professors has been proven to be very useful to me. (BONUS: a lot of the reviews are hilarious, so you'll probably get a laugh in while reading a review :) 2. I didn't need to buy brand new textbooks For all of you college veterans that are rolling your eyes right now and reading this thinking that's a "no brainer" I will speak explicitly to the novices here. For some reason, in my brain, renting my textbooks seemed awful, I didn't want anyone's used up book with highlighter markings all over it. But honestly, if you have a substantial amount of tuition to pay buying all of your books brand new is probably not a good option. Now I'm the type of person who wants the brand new book to take to the first day of class, but sometimes I need to be realistic, even buying used books is another solution for those of you who are still cringing at the thought of renting another book (I know I am). The perfectionist in me wants the brand new book, but a used one (or rented) works just as well. A semester can fly by quickly, and before you know it you're stuck with with a book on The Economic Systems of America, when you're a Psychology major. Bottom line, you should probably only buy the books that are related to your major or ones that you can genuinely see yourself using in the future. 3. Comparing Textbook Prices Most colleges have their own bookstores, which is where they obviously want you to get your textbooks. BUT, I think it is a very good idea to look at other places like Amazon, Chegg, or Ecampus. By comparing textbook prices you can see whether or not you are getting the best deal. And everybody wants to save money, especially when you are in college. Even though your college may have a book store that doesn't mean you have to buy your textbook from there, if there is a better deal somewhere else it's better to save your money. 4. Being Minimalistic I am the type of person that over prepares for everything, which is a good thing most of the time, but when you are in college you can't just put your back pack away in your locker like in high school, you have to carry it around all day. Which can give you some serious back problems if you are taking more than one class that day. So what I am saying is you probably don't need a notebook for every class (getting a three or five subject notebook works). You probably won't need to bring your whole make up bag to class, or every thing that's in your wallet (smaller wallets that attach to your keys are amazing!). Overall, just try to downsize what's in your back pack if you really can't part with it all together because you are essentially carrying your locker on your back, which can be less painful if you take out things that you don't really need. 5. Making my own schedule It may sound amazing to sleep in till twelve o'clock in the afternoon on Monday when your class starts at two o'clock. Or having a two hour break between classes to do whatever you want, but honestly I really wish I hadn't planned it out that way because it gave me more excuses to do everything else besides homework. If you're a morning person take morning classes (same for a night owl) and put them close together so that when you're done you're done, and then you can go home or do whatever else you want to do, so that way you're not wandering around in the library avoiding doing homework or some other obligation. Now personally I am neither a morning or night person, I function the best in the after noon, so now I plan my schedule to where I can take classes within the mid morning so then I can go home in the afternoon. At the end of the day, just pick a good schedule that works best for you and your lifestyle. These are some things that I wish I knew before going college. (which I have learned from). I hope that you will learn from my trials, and have a more enjoyable college experience. Stay tuned for my next post! ~Steph |
Hi, I'm StephanieI am an undergraduate psych major who enjoys creative writing, collecting stationery, and watching The Walking Dead.
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