Are you a smart and savvy pre-collegiette looking for answers to some of your most personal questions about college? You know, the ones about boys, classes, roommates and parties that your school’s guidance office can’t help you with? Jen is here to answer those questions! Whatever your concern, she’ll do her best to help you so you can make sure you don’t just survive college, but rock it!
What’s the hardest thing about transitioning from high school to college? –Emily
Emily,
I think that the hardest transition was learning how to manage my time. In high school, you’re in the same building all day for classes for a set amount of time. Then, you can choose to stay after school for extracurricular activities or sports practice, or you can just go straight home for the night. It’s a pretty set schedule.
Once you get to college, this routine totally changes. You have a certain number of classes, and they’re all at different times and are on different days of the week. Some classes you take might be back-to-back, which can sometimes get crazy in regards to your eating schedule. One semester, I had three classes in a row, so I always had to eat a late lunch. Make sure that you eat a healthy breakfast if you have a schedule like this; it will help to keep you on your A-game!
Most of the time, you’ll get a break in between classes. Sometimes this break will be an hour, and sometimes it’ll be for the majority of the day, so it’s super important that you make the most of it. Club meetings and sports practices can be at different times every day, so it’s up to you to manage your own schedule to make sure that you don’t miss a beat. Lots of my extra activities are conscious of this, so we often have meetings late at night, around 9:30 p.m. or later, to accommodate students who have night classes and sports practice.
The hardest part is learning how to make the most of those small breaks that you have throughout the day. It’s super tempting to surf the web, read a magazine or have a dance party in my room during these little breaks, but often I really need to work on an important assignment. There’s nobody around telling you to do your homework or to stop jamming out to Austin Mahone (am I the only one who does that? Maybe?), so you really have to be responsible for yourself. When you do, you’ll see an improvement in your grades, lifestyle and happiness. Plus, you don’t have to stop being a Mahomie to get good grades—just listen to Austin while you get your work done like I do if that’s your thing!
It definitely takes some time to learn how to stay on top of things, but once you master how to manage your time, you’ll feel like a total boss!