1. “I’m definitely studying every week for this class.”
You take one look at the syllabus and your inner perfectionist blossoms. You plan to study every night of class, take diligent notes and quiz yourself. The week’s worth of work is spaced out so perfectly in your mind. Last quarter’s dead week scared you enough to made you want to study throughout this new quarter. Nothing can stop you from being the proactive student that you are.
2. “I love my classes!”
You try so hard to get excited for your new classes. No matter how difficult, boring or pointless a class may appear, you’re so determined to take advantage of every benefit possible. Observational Astronomy? Watch out world, Galileo coming through. Financial Accounting? That will totally help me in the real world. Knowledge and Reality? I love getting existential with it. In one way or another you will justify how your classes will apply to your life even if that didn’t happen last quarter, the quarter before or the quarter before that. Halfway through the quarter you can start building hype for your next set of classes while you’re browsing PASS. It’s okay.
3. “This quarter is internship quarter.”
You were just so busy last quarter. Biting off more than you can chew really does nip you in the bud (either that or laziness).
“Eh, I still have time to apply for one. My resume is all done—oh wait. I need to update that. Oh well, that literally takes 3 minutes. After that, I’ll peruse internships.com and make a list of all of the exciting openings I see.” This is typically as far as you get. If you’re extra determined then you might even send your resume in! But for now, you’re too enamored by all of the internship opportunities you scroll through (#guilty). No worries, you can apply later because these opportunities will totally be waiting for you later.
4. “I’ll actually go to office hours.”
You jot down your professors’ office hours and locations in your planner all in one tidy location. The minute something doesn’t make sense in class, you’re ready to write it down, barge into office hours like a boss and get low down from your professor. But wait—you have class in Baker and her office is over yonder in the Business building? Oh well, an email will suffice. Even then, as much as you’d love to kick it with your professor during office hours you’d much rather kick it at Rock ‘n’ Reggae Flow Yoga…which just so happens to be at the same time. Oh darn.
5. “I’m going to kick start my side project.”
You know that thing you’ve been dabbling in between classes? Now would be a great time to grab that bull by the horns and do it. With all of this free time the first couple of weeks, there’s no excuse to not pursue it.
“My Etsy shop is going to be banging. I’m gonna sell this and that and some of these—wait, it’s going to take how long?” You might be the most driven collegiate on campus, and props to you for that. But when you realize how much energy your side project would require, you go “nah” and hold off till the summer. Even then, you’re lucky if the summer slump doesn’t make you into an unproductive blob.
Good luck fellow Mustangs. May this quarter be yours to conquer (but actually).