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The leaves are turning red, pumpkin spice lattes are back, and the schoolwork ahead is giving you a fright! Welcome to academic autumn, the ultimate guide to surviving this fall semester 🍂

Now, diving right in, I want to start us off on a good note, so here are a few things to look forward to this fall: Halloween, pumpkin patches, jumping into piles of leaves, warm apple cider, baking cinnamon rolls, rainy days curled up with a good book, fall festivals, and rewatching Gilmore Girls.

Okay, I know that cheered you up a bit, so now let’s move on to how to elevate your school life this semester.

Study tips:

Procrastination is your best friend and your greatest enemy. I am a chronic procrastinator, but I also tend to do my best work under pressure, so putting off my homework until the last minute usually works in my favor; however, the stress of getting it done in time is not always worth it. Know your limits, and choose wisely.
Study breaks are super beneficial for your mental health as long as you’re using your time wisely. As enticing as it is to scroll on social media, try reading some cool articles or even pick up your current read and spend some time in another world.
Annotating is the only way you’re going to get through some of these selected readings. Your annotations don’t have to mean anything or be entire paragraphs, but just jotting down the first thought that comes to your mind really helps in the long run because you might be more likely to remember what you were reading if you found it worth noting.
Ask yourself questions while you are reading! My professor recently suggested this to me when I asked for advice on better analyzing the stories we’re reading for class, and although it’s sometimes hard to come up with questions, you often do it naturally while you’re reading!

Managing your busy schedule:

As we’re on the subject of studying, another important aspect is managing your life.

I personally love a good physical daily planner, especially because it’s so fun to decorate, but also because it gives me a place to organize my life and write a million to-do lists. My favorite planner currently is Amanda Rach Lee’s doodle planner; however, a planner doesn’t have to be expensive or aesthetic, it just needs to work for you. I also enjoy tracking all of my events, classes, and appointments in my phone’s calendar. Choosing specific colors for each category is so much fun and makes your calendar look nice.

One of my favorite organizational tools is Notion. It’s free and while it is very difficult to figure out at first, I find it worth the learning process because it motivates me to actually want to get stuff done.

Here’s a little peek into my school Notion template and the best feature I’ve used: writing down all of my assignments for each class with a checkbox next to each one. It makes me more productive because I know I get to tick the little box off once I complete an assignment or reading.

There are so many other ways to use Notion to organize your life. For example, I also have pages to track my reading and writing, as well as my daily to-do lists, if I don’t feel like using my physical planner.

3. Best Places for studying near the Emerson Campus:

Jaho

Great atmosphere and has a big selection of different types of food and drinks at good prices.

The Thinking Cup

Best Chai latte I’ve ever had, with cozy vibes and lots of seating.

Starbucks

So obvious, but the food has always been good for me at the location closest to campus, though seating is limited, it’s close to the Boston Common if you want to grab your order and find somewhere to sit out under the sun.

Panera Bread

Super cozy and typically not too busy. It’s not as loud as some study places are, and they offer so many great, healthy, and delicious food options!

4. Best advice for self-care

Now that we’ve gone over the academic side of things, let’s move on to the fun stuff, like movies, books, and music, because it’s not an academic autumn without some self-care! So here are a few recommendations to help you relax after all of that hard studying:

Here are my top 10 fall books that aren’t going to scare you:

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna