How to Cut Stress When Starting College

Deciding what college to go to can be exciting. You get to visit colleges, look at websites and brochures, and meet with admissions representatives. It’s exciting and it seems so easy at first. However, once you’re accepted, a certain amount of stress can kick in. Now you have a whole bunch of things to do along the way to college. You have to fill out financial aid forms, make sure your immunizations are up to date, and if you’re living in a college dorm room, you’re going to be relocating a lot of your possessions from your room at home. 

Doing all of these things can cause quite a bit of stress because there’s a lot you have to think of and a lot of running around you have to do. Most importantly, don’t take that stress out on your loved ones. It can be hard to not feel like you’re at a breaking point when there are plenty of to-do lists running through your head at all times. Plus, your family may want to hug you more or help you more because you’ll be leaving them soon. It can seem a little frustrating having your family hang on you all the time when you’re trying to run around and take care of things, but enjoy it and don’t get frustrated with them. You’ll find that once you get into college, you will be wishing you enjoyed that time more and spent as much time as you could with them because you’ll be a bit homesick. 

So how can you cut stress throughout this busy time? There are some key things you should be doing – making checklists and timelines as well as making time to do the hobbies you enjoy. Don’t think that you should be doing things for college during every free minute. Set aside time to hang out with your family and friends. Play a video game, watch a movie, or read a book. Go shopping or just walk around the mall. Do things around your town that you like to do. If you make time for these activities, you’ll be cutting down on stress drastically because you won’t constantly feel bogged down by preparing for college. You’ll also be having time to do fun things that you want to do and don’t underestimate how valuable that is.

You’ll want to make checklists. Of everything. Make separate checklists for things that you need to do for the college such as financial aid forms and immunization records and then make a checklist of things you need to bring with you to college. Just packing things up won’t work – you’ll find that you brought things you didn’t need and forgot things that you did need. Making a checklist well in advance of moving into the college dorm room will allow you to think about each item you put on it and if you really need it. It will also allow you to better coordinate things with your roommate – you don’t want to bring 2 TVs and 2 Microwaves. 

Finally, you’ll want to make timelines. Make sure you include deadlines for certain things on your checklists, such as if your college has a deadline for financial aid forms or for immunization records to be turned in. It will allow you to see what is a priority when. You’ll even want to make timelines for your dorm checklist – you don’t want to pack every single thing for your dorm room the week that you move in. Pack up things you won’t be using until you get to your dorm room first and move them to a designated area such as the basement.