By: Brian (Residence Advisor in q’ələχən)
The school year is finally here, and now with a couple of weeks already gone, I am going to discuss the importance of good time management and the benefits of scheduling and prioritizing your tasks. I remember the first month of my first year being somewhat overwhelming, mainly because not only did I have a new academic environment to deal with, but I also was living on my own for the first time and being bombarded with a variety of awesome extracurricular opportunities to take part in.
First things first, if you are reading this, you most likely came to university to get a degree. If this is the case, school is a very important priority. However, university is quite a different environment than most high schools, since you may notice you spend a lot less time in class and seem to have significantly more unfilled time. This can feel quite freeing for the first couple of weeks of September, but the reality is for every hour you spend in lecture, you should be spending two to three hours studying the material on your own. Not doing so is one of the easiest ways to fall behind. A great way to avoid falling behind for this reason is to schedule in study time during your week. One good way to do this is to print a copy of your timetable and fill in some of the empty spaces during the week with the appropriate study time for each course. Remember, weekends are also a prime time to study!
However, university life is way more than just academics; living on your own for the first time can be a very rewarding experience. Nonetheless, you still have to remember to take care of yourself. What do I mean by take care of yourself? Some of these things may seem obvious, but it is important to eat healthy and regularly, get enough sleep, and maintain good personal hygiene habits and cleanliness. Even though early morning classes can be a drag at times, they become easier to live with if you develop a regular sleep routine and make time to eat breakfast before class. Eating breakfast before class helps wake up your brain, and I think almost everyone can agree it is hard to learn when your brain is asleep! It is also important to maintain a degree of cleanliness in your living space. A super easy way to ensure this happens is to slide some time into your schedule for cleaning every week or two. If you have a roommate, you can even make cleaning a fun bonding activity!
Finally, with so many neat extracurricular opportunities on campus, it can sometimes be hard to resist signing up for everything. A good way to avoid becoming overinvolved is, before taking on an extracurricular, ask how much time it takes on average. The goal here is to prevent becoming overwhelmed by school and extracurriculars, and if you can get an approximate time commitment, you can plan the extracurricular activity into your schedule accordingly.
In conclusion, regardless of your living situation, there are only twenty four hours in a day. It is important to be aware of this and plan your time accordingly so you do not find yourself with thirty hours of things to do in a twenty four hour day. Keeping a schedule is a great way to do this. However, do remember to leave some down/fun time for yourself, and know that having enough time to be flexible will also make your life easier. Hopefully these tips will help you have an awesome, healthy, and rewarding first year!
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