Establishing a Routine in College

When you’re in college, you’re going to be living on your own for the first time. You’re also living far away from home, whether it is an hour or another state or country. That means your mom will have no idea what homework you have to do for your classes and when it is due. When you were living at home, your mom may have given you reminders to work on your homework and get off of your phone. However, when you’re at college, there is no one there to remind you to do these things. Not even your professors will give you reminders about homework. As you can imagine, starting out college with this much freedom with your homework can be rough. It can be all too easy to not read a certain section of a book for English because you want to play video games, or you think you remember pretty well from your classes what will be on the exam and don’t feel you need to study. 

Unfortunately, if you start these habits early on, it will be hard to change them later and you’ll find college isn’t as fun as it used to be. You don’t want to retake classes or graduate at a later date because of this early established pattern. The way to help yourself get through all of your homework while still having free time is to establish a routine.

First of all, invest in a good planner and keep detailed notes of when things are due on the larger daily planning slots. In the overall month at a glance section, write less detailed notes on the due date so you can see your entire month and what you have to do.  This will help you plan out what time you do have to spend with your friends.

Don’t wait until the last minute to work on homework. You’ll be more stressed, you’ll be rushing more, and you’ll find it actually takes up more of your time. Also, if you find you have a large chunk of free time in between classes and all of your friends are in class, don’t spend that time texting them. Use that time to your advantage and work on your homework, especially if you need the library or computer lab.

Make a To-Do list for each day with things you need to work on in order of importance. For example, things due sooner will be to the top of your list so you can get them done. That way if there is something that isn’t due for a while but you wanted to work on it, you can skip it for that day if you need to in order to have some free time.

You will need to build in time for studying. Make a study schedule and stick to it. It doesn’t have to be “Monday I’ll read from my History textbook from 3:30-4.” Make it more general – Monday from a certain time you will work on whatever you have to do. You need to build in study time to your schedule and stick to it. Make a new version of your schedule with your classes blocked out and block out time in your day that you set aside for studying. With certain times for studying, you won’t feel so overwhelmed later and like you’re not getting anything done. You can even set a routine for how you study and how you do your homework to make things easier for you.

What to Find Out When You Get Your Roommate Assignment

Finding out your roommate assignment can be exciting and a little stressful. There are going to be a lot of things going through your head when you find out your roommate assignment. You’re going to be living with someone other than your parents, and you’ve never met them before. This is a whole other person’s personality and schedule that you have to get used to. You don’t want to avoid talking with your assigned roommate until move-in day. Chances are, you’re going to find out your roommate’s name and contact information before then, so don’t just toss the information in the garbage or in a folder and wait to talk/see what happens on move-in day. You’re going to want and need to communicate with your roommate before you move in to find out certain things.

Your college may not just stick you with any old roommate. They may do a small survey and try to find out certain things to attempt to give you the best match. They may ask study habits, when you prefer to go to bed, and other basic study habits and personality traits. The thing is, you don’t want to just leave it up to the college and expect them to make the best match and assume that your roommate is exactly like you. Even though your college asked each of you those questions, you want to make sure you ask them yourself.

Once you know your course schedules, you’re going to want to share them with each other. Not so you can get together in between classes and hang out (although if you want to, that’s great!). You’re going to want to know if your roommate has an early class that requires them to get up at 6 in morning and you’re also going to want to know if they have really late night classes so you can schedule your study times accordingly.

Work out who is bring what large dorm items – who should bring the TV and who should bring the microwave, mini-fridge, and other large shareable items? You really need to work this out with your roommate – your Residence Hall room is going to be too small to have two of each of those large essentials. If you need to buy things, such as the microwave and the mini-fridge, you don’t want to split the cost of purchasing. Work out who will buy what. The reason for this is the end of the year – if you’re evenly splitting the cost of an item, then who gets to keep it at the end? 

One thing you may not have thought of talking with your roommate about are guests. Before college even starts, work something out in regards to having guests over, whether it’s your best friend since Kindergarten or someone you’re working on a project with for a class. Have a set system in place, even if it’s as simple as asking your roommate a couple days before if it’s okay if the guest comes over. Don’t just have them come over and have your roommate be surprised. You have to live with this person – don’t do anything sudden that could upset them. 

Talk about anything else you can think of – talk about what TV shows, movies, books, or music they like. Get to know your roommate beyond the basic things that you need to know in order to live with this person. If you don’t do these basic things, you’re doing yourself a disservice in the end, and could end up having roommate problems. Trust us, you don’t want roommate problems. You won’t be able to simply walk up the RA or Director of Residence Life and tell them you want a new roommate and/or new room. The Residence Hall may be full and they won’t be able to accommodate your request. Plus, they’ll immediately ask you if you talked things over with your roommate, anyway. Start college out right from the start and get to know your roommate without having to use your RA as a mediator later.

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.