The past two semesters have not been easy for any student participating in remote learning. The transition from in person classes to zoom lectures happened both unexpectedly and abruptly. These are the only ways we can be actively participating in school now that life has changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are still adjusting to the transition to online learning even though we have been dealing with it for the past seven months or so.
Through this transition we were forced to learn how to manage our time and plan our school life much differently than we did in prior semesters. This entire schedule has forced me to learn how to make myself stay organized and keep up with my own school work throughout the semester. We are now given the privilege of watching recorded classes and being fully online working from my own bedroom. This is a great privilege that we are given, even during these times we are still able to keep ourselves safe while learning and preparing ourselves for the future.
I have seen a common thread of students who do not take this as an opportunity to better themselves throughout the semester. It is hard to stay committed and positive and motivate yourselves during these unprecedented times. I encourage all students to take this as an opportunity to organize your school work and learn to manage your education in your own way.
This is an important time in our lives! To make every semester count and to ensure that these are the best years, we need to make sure we are getting everything we can from our classes. We need to motivate ourselves to make sure we are taking school seriously and bringing it all together even though this is not what we would normally be going through during a semester. I want to encourage all students to make the most of this time of remote learning. Whether this means classes, clubs, or internships all these should be considered important and be just as important even during a remote semester.
Here are some of my tips on how to organize your life through this change to remote learning:
Google Calendar
I have struggled in learning how to schedule my time appropriately throughout the semester at school. One main platform that has helped me is Google Calendar. I do not use google for my day to day scheduling, but Google is a great way to manage a timeline of dates. I take my school calendar for the semester with dates of holidays, classes, and breaks and plug it all into my online calendar. This is a general way to see my calendar for the full semester and set reminders to my phone and computer.
Egenda
I found this app through tik tok and it is a great way to set up a virtual agenda. I was able to look at my syllabi for all my classes and write out each assignment and due date for the appropriate class. This app gives me a list of assignments due that week, the next week, and all assignments after these. This is great as a virtual agenda to have on your phone with notifications.
Write Out A To Do List For Everyday
I am the type of person to write out a todo list for my day, everyday. I write this list out on the notes app and schedule myself a list to do hour by hour with a rough estimate of what my day might look like. This is something that a lot of people do to hold themselves accountable and remember all tasks they need to get done in a day. This is a great way to be productive and make sure you are not spending your days doing nothing like we might have done during quarantine.
Separate Due Dates For The Week
One tip I have as a student is to separate your to do list throughout the week. For most of my classes I have the same due date every week. This forces us into a routine each week for times when we work on assignments for certain classes. I encourage everyone to schedule out each assignment for a day throughout your five day week depending on when those assignments are due. I think that when you set time aside to work on assignments for a particular class every week it balances your workload and doesn’t leave you with a huge pile of work that all needs to get done at once.
Map Out Your Month In Advance
Lastly I have a handwritten agenda that I purchased on Amazon. This is another place I write out my assignments for the week,my class schedule for the day and all my activities I have relating to greek life and involvement on campus. This is just another way I am able to hold myself accountable and make sure I am staying organized and getting all my tasks done throughout the semester.
My favorite agenda I have used so far:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081KWT2VZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1