Homework and College

There’s a lot about college that is new and different from high school. It’s a whole new environment that you have to get used to, and it involves a lot more than getting used to living in a dorm room. One of the things that may not have crossed your mind is homework in college. Yes, there is going to be homework. No, it won’t be the same as what you did in high school. And unfortunately, there will be a lot of it. Remember groaning in high school when your teacher said you had homework for next class and it ended up being only a worksheet? Even with this small amount of homework you probably groaned, dreaded it, and put it off until the last minute. In college, the days you don’t have homework are going to be few and far between. Having to read a hundred or more pages for either the next class in the same week or week after is going to be a normal occurrence. So how do you get through all of that homework for 5 or more classes?

Time management is key. If you have time in between classes whether it is 15 minutes or 2 hours, use that time to work on your homework. If you have a light week of homework, use the extra time to get a little bit ahead if you know your homework load is going to be heavy the next week. How will you know? Use the syllabus that your professor provided you with at the beginning of the semester. Your homework for the most part will be laid out in the syllabus so you know what to expect each day and week of the class.

You’ll want to invest in study supplies. A lot of them. Trust me. It’s not unrealistic to go through a whole pack of highlighters and a few pads of sticky notes in one semester. You’re going to want a variety of sticky notes. Make sure you have the normal medium sized squares and also make sure you have the small sticky notes that you can place near an important line in a book. These will be your life saver when you’re putting together a 10 page essay and need to reference a quote or when you’re studying a certain concept. Also invest in note cards. College exams are big deals. You need to do well throughout a whole class and especially on the exams in order to not retake the class next semester (which you don’t want to do because it will be a hassle and you only get a few tries at taking a class. Plus you need a certain grade in order for the class to count). Index note cards are great cheap study supplies that are essential whether you’re studying with friends or on your own.

Possibly the most important thing to do is not wait until last minute to do a large essay, thesis, or project for the completion of your program. You may dread writing 10 pages about a certain book or theme, but it will be so much worse if you wait until the week it is due. Ten pages is a lot to write. You have to research, put together a Work Cited page, and make sure it is perfect with no errors and everything you referenced is accounted for. Waiting until the last minute to do all those things will only put a lot of stress on you on top of the other essays and exams you may have to do in the same week. The only thing you should be leaving for the week that the essay is due is a quick re-read of the essay to make sure it is error free and nothing needs fixed. 

Transferring to Another College

College is filled with tough decisions. Unfortunately, those tough decisions aren’t reserved for when you first start college. Every semester you’re going to have to decide which classes you want to take and then see if they’re only offered at certain times. There’s going to be times that you want to drop a class or switch to the same class with a different professor or different time offering. These are all tough decisions, but then it gets worse. Should you have a part or full time job while in college? Should you change majors? And then the hardest of them all – should you transfer to another college?

There could be any number of reasons why you would consider transferring to another college. Maybe you want to be closer to home and are having a tougher time than you thought being so far away from your family. Maybe the motivator of your decision is financial – maybe you went to an out of state or private college and want to switch to a college that is in state and cheaper, resulting in you having less student loans when you graduate. Whatever the reason for you considering a transfer to another college, one thing is for certain – it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

This isn’t the same as dropping a class or even changing majors. This is a decision that needs to be thought about for a long time. And by a long time, I don’t mean a day or a week. Think about it for longer than that – a month or longer, even. Finish out the semester at this college if you have to. In fact, it is recommended because you’ll be getting two birds with one stone – you’ll be getting credit for those classes and you’ll be getting some extra time to evaluate your decision. Don’t rush into your decision. Talk with your family about it and even your friends. Make sure you’re changing colleges for the right reason. Evaluate how the program you’re in is at the other college. Other than making a lot of decisions and evaluating your options, you’re going to have to go through a lot to drop out of your current college, transfer credits, and enroll at the new college. Make sure you know exactly what you need to do. Making a checklist is helpful in this situation. Make a checklist for your current college and the one you’re going to enroll in and maybe even create a folder or binder with your checklists and all the information you need for your college. Make sure you pay attention to deadlines. The new college will have a deadline for when you can transfer and enroll and you may have to do a lot of legwork with transferring your credits. It’s going to be a lot of work. A lot of stressful work. However, if you have come to the decision that it is the right path for you, it will be worth it in the end. Just don’t make a sudden decision and don’t do it for a simple, small reason (for example, you don’t like the dorms you’re living in). Arrange a campus visit at the new college if you can. You want to make sure that this is the right decision, and you may change your mind after you step on campus and talk to professors and other college personnel. Whatever you do, take the time to think about your options and make sure you are doing the right thing. 

Changing Majors

Maybe you had it all planned out for years. You knew in early High School, maybe in Middle School that you wanted to be a teacher or a nurse. When picturing your life after high school, you may have thought about your wonderful college life and a job right after high school and everything was laid out nicely. However, now that you’re in college, you’re having doubts. Maybe you aren’t doing as well in your classes for your Major as you thought and you’re not understanding what’s going on no matter how hard you try and how many tutors you have. Maybe you talked to professors and researched the job market for that major online and found that the outlook wasn’t too good. Or maybe you started taking classes and realized that your major isn’t as enjoyable as you thought and you’ve been enjoying other classes not in your major more than you thought you would. At this point you come to a scary decision - changing majors.

Changing majors is not a bad thing. It’s better to realize these things early on in your college life because it isn’t as hard to change as it would be later on in college. You don’t want to force yourself through your major if you’re not really enjoying it and know that you would enjoy a different major or career path better. It’s incredibly scary to have your college and career planned out for so many years and in a shorter span of time realize that it’s not for you. Talk to your family and friends and maybe even professors in the field you are thinking about. This is a tough decision to make, so you don’t want to take it lightly and go to the Registrar’s office the day after you decide that you want to switch majors. Make sure you know what your career options are with this major and if it is something you are, in fact, interested in. You can even try to shadow someone in that career path to see if what they are doing is something you would love to do every day. The most important thing to remember is that it is okay to change majors. It’s going to be stressful and you’re going to have to do a lot of running around talking to professors and getting signatures for the change, but if it’s what you really want to do, then it will be worth it in the end. 

Undeclared Major - Declaring Your Major as Undeclared

Starting college can be stressful. You have to think about possibly dorming or living in a college apartment and all of the things you need for that. You also have to (gulp!) think about what you want to do with your life. This is perhaps more stressful than thinking about living with a roommate! You may not want know what you want to do right out of high school. And that’s okay.

Some high school students seem to have it all figured out. They know really early what career they want, they know what they want to major in, and they have every single thing planned out. This is great, but it may make you feel a little bad because you may not have that part figured out. You just know that you want to go to college and learn so you start out as Undeclared. 

Starting out college as Undeclared isn’t a bad thing, it just means that you have a little more work ahead of you. You’ll spend this beginning time as an Undeclared Major by taking your core classes. Yes, there’s even a core group of classes in college! As you go through these classes, if you’re finding you’re really interested in one of the subjects, talk to your professors. Talk to your advisors. See what’s out there in the field that you might be interested in doing. Go on the internet and research the careers for that major. Maybe shadow someone working in a career you’re interested in. You may have more leg work as an Undeclared Major, but you get to have a sampling of different things you can do so that you know when you do make a choice it is the right one. And if you shadow someone or do research of a career and find that it is something you really don’t want to do? That’s okay, too! In fact that’s more than okay, and don’t get upset that it wasn’t what you thought. Just move onto the next thing. Don’t dwell on the fact that something didn’t work out. Know why? Because you found that out now. You found that out before you declared it as a major and got a career in it and that, college student, is extremely valuable!

Of course, you can’t stay Undeclared forever. Your college will have a time that you need to declare a major by, so you need to do your leg work pretty much right when you start college. Get involved in some groups and clubs at college, look through the college course catalog and explore your options. The most important thing you can do though is talk to your professors and advisors. However, you can’t expect them to do the leg work for you. As an Undeclared Major, you will need to take initiative and explore the options that are out there for you. Take time to settle into the college routine then start exploring. Remember – being Undeclared at first isn’t bad. Don’t let yourself get frustrated because others are at a different point than you are in planning their careers and majors. Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle point and good luck!