By Shammai Ugalino (Resident Advisor-Shuswap House)
Congratulations on finishing your first semester of university! That was quick, wasn’t it? I hope that your exams went well, and that you are at peace with how your first semester ended.
A lot can happen in a semester, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of it all, especially when exam season kicks in. That is why I believe it’s important to pause and reorganize our lives before the next semester begins – to close off the first semester the right way, to make room for the next. Here are some easy tips on how to close off the first semester:
- Organize your notes
- Hole punch and file all loose papers.
- Throw away any scrap papers used for doodling, exam practice, or anything else unimportant
- Place any study notes or cheat sheets that you made in front of your notes, for quick references about the course. You worked so hard on these study notes, so try to make use of them more than once.
- File old practice exams
- These can serve as a good review if this course is a pre-requisite for a number of upper-year courses that you will take.
- You never know when friends taking this course later may want some extra practice exams too. It’s always good to share ways to be successful with friends!
- Organize your documents on the computer
- File everything under “Winter 2014 – First Semester”, and into their respective subjects. It will make it easier to find things later.
- If you have notes from Connect or online course websites that you would like to keep for future references, download the pdfs and file them now. Access to these files may be removed once the new semester starts.
- Consider investing on an external hard drive, which can serve as a place to drop all your archived notes and documents once a semester or a school year is over. This is only the beginning of your undergrad!
- Restock your supplies. Check out what you have and don’t have: pens, loose leaf, new notebooks, highlighters, new batteries for i-clickers and calculators.
- Do laundry – everyone neglects to do so, especially during exam season.
- Go through the pictures you’ve taken through the semester, and if needed, organize them as well. It’s a nice way to reminisce on how far you’ve come in your first semester of university, and remember all the great adventures! Also, it’s a good thing to delete some unnecessary photos to prevent clogging up your computer.
There you go. Your first semester is over. Now sleep, eat mom’s cooking, and be proud of what you have accomplished!
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