College Being

Heading off to college is filled with excitement and fear. Without knowing what life will really be like out on your own, what your living situation will be like, or if you are headed in on the right career and degree path, you may be anxious and unsure of what to expect. But for many, college is filled with some of the best years of a person’s life. Knowing this can turn anxiety into a spark of excitement. But at the end of it all what is most important is having a good understanding of how to survive the next four years and make it out on top in a position to land your dream job.

Here are six tips to surviving college successfully.

1. Get organized –Before heading to your dorm or new apartment get organized by packing well and creating a system for how you will track each of your assignments. Unlike high school, you will not have the same schedule as your best friends to help keep you on track. Create a plan for yourself to stay organized during this year of transition so you do not fall behind and can feel in better control over your schedule.

2. Don’t schedule classes back to back – While this is how you operated in high school, rushing from one class to another can leave you missing out on important time to do group work and catch up with friends. Also, the campus is most likely quite a bit larger than a traditional high school campus so scheduling your courses only 10 minutes apart can leave you sprinting long distances and likely late. To survive this, try to space out your classes so you are not left with a feeling of being rushed across a large campus just to make it in time for your next class.

3. Make a study schedule – Without the watching gaze of your parents, study time may be more difficult to force yourself into. Instead of leaving yourself cramming at the last minute and pulling overnighters, give yourself a break and schedule in study time where you can force yourself to sit down and absorb the material. You will learn more, and do far better on the exams than if you wait until the last minute. And you will be less likely to be forced to pull all-nighters just to make it through finals season.

4. Use the resources provided by your college – Many schools provide computer labs, software programs, tutors, and other useful resources to help college be an easier and better-rounded experience. Take advantage of these resources and use them to your benefit. Many times you will find new ways to study and learn than you had realized before, which will help you do better in class and achieve more in the long run.

5. Team up – From day one, start talking to the people around you and team up to form study groups. These groups will be essential to keeping you on task to study and to make study time more fun. Working in groups can help you to learn the material better by having peers to teach material to and to ask questions of. These peer groups are used by many professors because of their success. However, if your professor is not putting you to work in teams, creating your own will be just as beneficial.

6. Stay healthy – It is easy to slip off track with your workouts and nutrition, but steer clear of gaining that notorious Freshman 15 pounds and focus on using the campus recreation center to continue your fitness regime. To encourage healthy eating, consider starting a dinner rotation with some friends where you each make each other healthy meals every week. This is a fun way to keep the fun in college and avoid getting burned out from studying too much.

Aileen Pablo is part of the team behind Open Colleges, one of Australia’s leading providers of online courses. When not working, Aileen blogs about education and career. She is often invited as a speaker in Personality Development Seminars in the Philippines. You can find her on Google+.