Edited by Avleen Grewal
It’s that time of the year again… pulling all-nighters, cramming for midterms and studying until your eyes pop out of your head. Yep, it’s the first few weeks of school. It’s usually incredibly hard to go from relaxing in the sun to being holed up inside your room reading a book (and no, the book doesn’t have a plotline… or the title “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”). Although we are still in the first few weeks of school, midterms are fast approaching and it’s time to get back into the school mode. Here’s my experience with the back to school summer hangover and some tips to combat it.
The first problem I’ve always had (and the hardest to get over) is my summer slumber schedule. Sleeping late at night and waking up at noon is the best part of summer. Unfortunately, the notorious 9 A.M. classes and 10 chapters a week do not fit well with my sleep schedule. In fact, I now have the complexion of a zombie. However, I don’t plan on keeping this up for long. The best way to get a sleep schedule that works for university is to train yourself. Wake up and sleep at the same time everyday. Eventually, your body will get used to it and you won’t be as exhausted during the day.
The next biggest adjustment when going back to school is handling all of the readings. In summer, it was nice to snuggle up with my favorite book and a double chocolatey chip frappuccino. However, it’s never not even tolerable to snuggle with a textbook and 10 cups of coffee. It really doesn’t help when the chapters are longer than a Harry Potter book and the only adventure is looking at “Table 1” (or if we’re getting really crazy, looking at “Figure 1”). I’ve found that taking the chapters 5 pages at a time at the start of the year can be helpful in getting you used to reading textbooks again. After a few days, add more pages until you’re ready to read a large chunk of the chapter in one sitting.
Finally, it’s difficult to go from hanging out with your hometown friends all summer to not seeing them at all when school starts. During summer, I made sure that I had the chance to hangout with everyone I hadn’t seen for a while. With the hot weather and long days there were many things we could do together. When school started again, everyone moved back to campus. The one bright side is that going back to school means you can see your university friends again. I’ve found that making time to hangout with your university friends, before everyone gets busy, makes the transition to school a lot easier. If you don’t have the time to hangout with friends, then during your breaks find time to video chat with your friends and family.
Going back to school can bring many challenges. Although the transition from summer to school is difficult, taking it slow at the start of the year can be extremely helpful. Make a sleep schedule, take breaks while reading a chapter and find time to hangout with friends. I hope these tips can help all of you (and me) survive the next few weeks. Good luck this year!