You moved in almost two weeks ago. Labor Day is over, and you’ve probably started learning actual material in your classes—unfortunately, syllabus week is over. It’s crunch time.
Now, if you’re at all like me (which I sincerely hope that at least some of you are), you’re probably strangely jittery about midterms, papers, assignments, labs (and did I mention midterms?) looming over you already. Then you realize that the jitteriness is slowly turning into anxiety. If you’re in my boat—which suddenly seems to have sprung a leak, with each drop of water soaking your new ballet flats reflecting an empty grade on Canvas—I highly recommend you try some of these strategies for yourself.
First and foremost, calm down! This one’s pretty self-explanatory. If you’re the type of person who likes to put things into perspective, this semester is one of eight you will be completing at Penn. Even further, each course is one credit of at least 36 you will be taking in your academic career. Taken that way, nothing seems more significant than it should. Certainly put your all into your schoolwork, but no one single exam is going to be the end of the world. Try to enjoy your time here.
If you’re more of a spiritual person, meditation can be very calming. And even if you’re not spiritual, try Savasana (it’s basically napping, so I don’t know who wouldn’t want to try this). Lay on your floor on a soft yoga mat or blanket. Breathe slowly and imagine your body filling up with sand. Start at your toes and go all the way up to your head. This should take at least ten minutes. If you’re not sleeping by the end, you’ll be very relaxed as long as you make sure you get up and out of it as gradually as you went in. We all know how it feels to be rudely awakened by the sound of an alarm or an awareness that we’ve overslept that said alarm (along with 30 minutes of class). The same principle applies here.
Map the semester out in your planner. Don’t have a planner? Buy one. Then gather up your syllabi (with a piece of chocolate or some froyo—whatever comforts you) and write down the due dates of each major assignment, midterm and final for all of your classes. If you’re feeling particularly obsessive-compulsive, you can use a different colored pen or highlighter for the different assignment types. You’ll soon have a rough map in your mind of what comes after what, but even more importantly, that everything is more reasonably spread out than you thought.
This is particularly good for those of us (guilty!) that tend to forget about longer-term assignments until the professor reminds us in class. And for the rest, it’s awfully cathartic to be able to flip to next week and see only one or two major tasks we have to undertake.
Get in touch with your professors. This seems unnecessary if you don’t have any content-related questions yet, but it’s a very useful thing to do. First, it puts your name to a face, so when they’re grading your more subjective assignments (like papers or projects), they’ll be primed psychologically that you are a student who puts effort into their class. This also opens up a line of communication that will make you feel more comfortable developing a dialogue with them for the duration of the semester. Another perk that comes along with making contact with professors: recommendations! All of my professors have made a statement that they feel more comfortable writing recommendations (these can be for jobs, grad school, or, more urgently, internships) for students with whom they began communication early in the semester and continued it.
If you don’t have any content questions, you can ask general questions about the structure of the course. I often like to ask whether (and I know this seems unbelievably Type A) the course will be heavily dependent upon reading the textbook, or whether the lectures will generally suffice in terms of content coverage. Professors usually respond to these types of questions really nicely and well, and this gives you the added benefit of saving maybe some money on unnecessary books (or at least time while studying)!
Prioritize your classes! All of your classes are important, don’t get me wrong, but it’s equally important to be able to prioritize your time during midterm and finals week, when everything really starts to pile up. As a general rule, your major classes are probably the most important, especially for upperclassmen who are climbing higher and higher into the 200, 300 and even 400-level classes. Second on your list should come the general education requirements, because those can be pretty challenging. The last on the list should be your free electives that (hopefully) give you credits without requiring too much effort.
Don’t be afraid to try new strategies, even mid-semester. I know that a lot of us are very wary of trying new things once we’ve found ways that work for us (tell me you don’t have a lucky pen for exams, I dare you). But it’s important to mix things up occasionally, especially if your tried-and-true strategies aren’t working.
For example, if you usually study at night but find yourself always getting sleepily dragged through the words of Locke or Kant, it may be time to make a change. Try switching it up and waking up before class to read instead of lugging yourself to Starbucks to buy another coffee at night. For papers, if you find yourself getting lost in circular arguments because the concepts are too complex, try mapping things out in outlines the way you did in middle school to clarify your way through.
If you need other helpful study tips, there are tons of different tutors you can find around campus!
A little escapism goes a long way. I know amidst all of this talk of work, work and more work, the last thing you want to hear about are time-wasting activities that you could do instead. But I promise you, these are actually good for you! Psychologists claim that if you spend more than 90 minutes at one time studying or writing something, the quality of your work decreases exponentially.
That being said, I’m a huge advocate for getting a Netflix subscription if you don’t already have one. You can watch an episode for twenty minutes and get right back to studying, which is approximately the time you would have spent refreshing your Facebook newsfeed anyway, isn’t it?
If you’re less inclined toward television, sign up for a weekly dance class or join a new club that you think is interesting. Or even schedule a weekly lunch or dinner date with a friend you haven’t seen in a while. Getting away for at least an hour a week, completely immersing yourself in an activity or someone else’s life (as long as you promise not to discuss schoolwork) can be extremely cathartic and will likely leave you recharged. Plus, it gives you something to look forward to each week other than the beginning of the weekend!
Image credits:
http://www.thecampuscompanion.com/svelte/2012/12/12/a-college-girls-guide-to-looking-and-feeling-better/#.UjxwBxbd7ww