I know a fair number of James(es?) but this is written to two of my favourites (not that I don’t like the rest of you!) It was James Flynn who asked me for advice about going off to unversity, and it’s to him and Thegiant that I now write. You’re both going off to university in the fall, albeit different sides of the country, and this is my advice to you (and your friends, if you so feel like sharing it.)
Basically the hardest thing about university is managing time. When you get to school there’s a ton of fun events and new people, and music, and workshops, and projects, and student teams, and clubs etc. etc. etc. not to mention homework and class. Basically, there’s a group for everything and anything you’re sort of interested in. There’s incredibly interesting people to meet and many friends to be made. There are nerdfighters, and geniuses, and people who play great music. Don’t forget to meet people, as I’m sure you’ll meet some who inspire you, and some who outright blow your mind. Campus is like it’s own little world, buzzing with potential and fun and nerdiness. Meeting people and joining clubs and starting your own projects are really important things to do, but it can get very difficult to balance social and extracurricular stuff with classwork, so just beware of that. There are so many great experiences to have at university, and it took me till around now to realize that you really do have to pick between them sometimes. Or your grades or sleep will suffer (actually, your sleep will probably suffer anyways.)
As much as I’d like to claim to be a god of time management I’m not. There’s lots of books on it and different people have different opinions about it. Scheduling can be helpful, multitasking rarely is, and environment can have a big influence, but most of all, I’ve found it all boils down to one thing: Just do it. Personally I find playing music helps a lot. I like to do math in the morning and writing after 10 pm. I like taking a full hour off for meals. I don’t do homework on fridays. I love working in groups, but find it to be much less efficient. On the other hand I’m likely to enjoy it more and work longer. I like having all my materials (textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils, eraser’s, laptop, formula sheets, stickynotes) within reaching distance because getting up to get stuff tends to be enough to get me sidetracked. I find keeping track of how much I’m working using a stopwatch is an odd trick that helps me focus. I try not to take breaks more frequently than an hour (I often fail this one.) I keep a calendar (google calendar actually) that has when each of my assignments is due. I find foreign, especially french, music less distracting when I need to focus. But all of these are really just techniques I use to get myself to just do it. I’m sure you’ll find many of your own tricks.
Now regarding homework: The work isn’t that much harder, at least in first year university, but profs move much faster, and you are expected to do all of your work outside of class. That takes some getting used to. Focusing can be hard. I pulled a couple all nighters. It’s especially difficult studying for finals at the end of the term because you feel so burnt and so much is riding on that last grade. Maybe you’ll just be stellar and won’t run in to these problems, but I’m just speaking from my experience. I’m not great at the whole time thing myself but here’s what I recommend. Keep your notes neat and go after them every day after class, even though it’s a pain. That way you won’t need to study as much at the end. I like keeping my notes in a little ring notebook and then doing assignments on looseleaf. Highlighters and sticky notes are your friends. Try to come up with a review system that takes only half an hour per class per day so that you’ll have time for assignments as well without getting overloaded. Seek out other people to work with. Make friends in your class and compare answers. When hw loads are really heavy its worth doing hw with friends because then you get to be semi social, and even with distractions will probably get it done close to as fast since there are people to help you with questions that you may have struggled with for much longer if you were by yourself. Keep on top of the material cause it’s much easier to do that then it is to catch up. Schedual your time (google calendar is great for this).
Then there’s the fun stuff: There’s probably a clubs/student teams sort of fair at the beginning of the year, check it out and sign up for a bunch of stuff. You won’t have time for everything but you may not realize what you’ll enjoy the most so you can try a bunch of stuff out at the beginning. I mean I thought I’d for sure end up doing engineers without borders and the rubik’s cube (twisty puzzle) club, but I spent way more time going to concerts, slam poetry and juggling. So pick a bunch of stuff and you’ll get email notifications about when events are. you can reroute them to your spam folder or unsubscribe if you end up not having time or being uninterested. Or save them, I signed up for juggling in the first term but didn’t go till right near the end. Also student events, clubs, and often even seminars often have free food. So look for that incentive to show up. (free food usually means pizza, omnomnom)
There isn’t much time for tv at university, so if you’re going to watch something make sure its your absolute favourite (BBT!). However, movies are good, even though they’re longer, becacuse they’re done in one go and then you don’t have an urge to watch the other 20 episodes of something when you realize you’ve missed the entire third season of such and such. There is lots of time for music. Music during homework makes it a hell of a lot less painful when you’re on your fifth consecutive hour.
Also, please, please, please, get involved in your residence. Hopefully you’ll get to live in a nice lively place. My residence encouraged everyone to leave their doors open, so we visited with each other regularly. I had a few friends who just walked in whenever they felt like, and a few friends who I knew I could go to whenever. You may feel like you’re ready to be away from home now, and you very well may be ready, but being alone can still, suck, like a lot. So having friends on the same hall is a fantastic way to crush the homesickness and feel more connected at university. Residences also tend to plan events like dances, movie nights, various contests where you build stuff etc. Attend at least a couple of them, they’re pretty fun for the most part.
Here’s a quick recap (and a couple things I didn’t previously mention but thought to throw in hee)
- Managing time is hard, use whatever tricks you can to get yourself to “Just Do It”
- Music is great study company
- Sticky notes and highlighters are you BFFs
- Stay caught up, even if it’s a pain to review daily it is worth it
- Try out different study environments, times, settings, study partners
- Be friendly to people, everyone else is as nervous as you in first year
- Get used to having friends who are smarter than you
- Study with those friends
- Get involved in residence
- Take time to go to social events
- Sign up for a bunch of clubs, and then pick your favourites
- Remember to sleep, at least occaisonally
- Eat fruit (I know someone who knows someone who got scurvy…)
- Don’t forget your studies despite having an awesome time
- Be prepared to meet some mindblowingly awesome people
- Soak up all the crazy ideas those people have
- Write me about your adventures
Okay, I love you guys, have a great first year!
Kamilah