So, you’ve just accepted your university offer. What’s next?
This time last year, I remember the jitters of university acceptances rolling in, and the hallway chatter at my high school being overcome with discussions on who would go where and what our lives would be like after high school. When I received my acceptance to Queen’s University to study commerce last spring, I was ecstatic. This was my dream program, and when I received my acceptance email I remember the tearful rejoicing I shared with my friends and parents. However, coming to Queen’s was like navigating a whole new world; one completely foreign to me. As an out-of-province student, I didn’t have the opportunity to tour the school or attend in-person summer orientation events. I recall feeling anxious that upon arriving in September, I would feel out of place. Everything seemed so complicated, and in many ways, I felt I was on my own to figure a lot out. However, as the weeks passed and seasons changed, I became more familiar with my environment, and soon enough, Queen’s felt like home. Whether you’re coming to Queen’s next fall, want to someday, or accepted an offer at another school, hopefully these tips will help guide you as you embark on your journey navigating the universe of post-secondary education.
One of the first lessons I had to learn coming to school was how to hold myself accountable. In high school, you’re almost smothered by support and encouragement from your parents, peers, and teachers. Having a strong support system you can rely on when things get tough is pivotal to your success in high school, and oftentimes, despite it perhaps being an unwelcome gesture at the time, they also held you accountable. In university, there’s no one telling you what time to wake up, when to go to sleep, or how much time you should devote to your studies. You’ll quickly find yourself juggling a multitude of new responsibilities, from academics to extracurriculars to socializing. It can be hard to strike a balance. Truthfully, this is something I still struggle with, but I’ve found that with time, there are a few tricks I learned. For instance, if you haven’t previously utilized a calendar to organize your schedule, now is the time to start. When you have 5-6 classes and multiple clubs you’re a part of, you will not be able to keep track of everything in your head. Some people prefer a physical agenda, while others utilize online calendars like Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar. I’m an Outlook girl through and through, and I rely on my aesthetically colour-coded calendar to tell me where I need to be and when every day.
Additionally, although it may be tedious, I would highly recommend creating some sort of spreadsheet or checklist to keep track of all your assignments for the semester. Typically, your professor will release the course syllabus the first week of classes, and this is the time to carefully go through each one and compile a list of all your assignments for every class, their due dates, and weight for the semester. Trust me, you’ll rely on this list often, and for me, I’ve found it to be extremely helpful to have all my deliverables in one place so I can see what’s coming up and better plan my schedule around this. I know many students like to create their spreadsheets either using Excel or, if you want to make it a little prettier to look at like me, you may opt to use Notion.
The second lesson I learned is that the 24 hours that are in a day are simply not enough. Seriously, ask any college student, and I’m sure they’ll tell you the same thing—time passes by in university, and when you have so many responsibilities and things to juggle at once, the day can slip by if you’re not paying attention. That being said, this is, of course, a fact of life, and even though I’ll stress the importance of getting enough sleep, you will inevitably pull some all-nighters and probably learn your lesson the hard way when the next day goes to waste. Trust me, I know how hard it can be to call it a night when assignments are looming and deadlines are quickly approaching, but sacrificing your sleep is not a long-term solution and will only hurt you in the long run. Instead, try to plan out your days and be as productive as you can when you have the most energy, but also make sure to allow yourself adequate time to rest, socialize, and engage in stress-relieving outlets.
Another hard lesson I’ve come to learn is that sometimes things don’t have to be completed perfectly; it’s more important to get it done the best you can in the moment. Inevitably, your best won’t always be enough, and you will fail, but striving for perfection will only leave you lagging further behind, and university moves too quickly for that.
You absolutely cannot study for midterms and finals the same way you did in high school. And that’s not to say you won’t—I am very guilty of this one. In high school, I’m sure many of us tended to procrastinate studying until the very last minute and then cram the night before a big test. While we knew this wasn’t the most effective method of studying, most of the time, we’d still do well enough to believe we could keep pulling these stunts throughout our academic careers. Unfortunately, university is where procrastination goes to die; that is, unfortunately cramming for an exam the night before probably isn’t going to be good enough anymore. You need to plan out your studying strategically, especially when you are taking many classes and studying high-level topics. My advice is to try and focus more on understanding overarching ideas and connecting them to critical course concepts rather than memorizing every little idea. One way to do this that I’ve found helpful is taking time at the end of each week to create a summary sheet for each of your courses, breaking down the most important topics you learned that week. Not only does this make for fantastic revision, but it will also be very handy come exam season when you’re scrambling to create notes.
This list is, of course, by no means an exhaustive account of all there is to know, because the truth is, no one knows it all. Even upper-year students are still learning, and oftentimes we learn the most through our failures. It can be scary to know that you will inevitably be met with failure, but I encourage you to keep in mind that nothing worthwhile comes easy, and even those who make it look the most effortless tend to be the ones who want it most and are working the hardest. Come September, you will lose yourself many times, but amid all the chaos, you will also begin to find yourself. Sometimes these new versions of ourselves can be daunting because they are unfamiliar, but I encourage you to give yourself grace. This is the start of a new chapter, and like the ones that came before it, this will be messy, but I think that as long as you remember to stop and look around every once in a while, you’ll know you belong here.