Do These 6 Things If You Want To Get Ahead At The Start Of Semester
Bring on the motivation.
Motivation can be a fleeting thing. We start the semester ready to go, books in hand and eager to learn. However by the time we’re four weeks in, we’re less bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and more Netflix and chill.
So let’s make the most of being motivated and get ahead at the start of semester two. Here are a few tricks to get the ball rolling:
Get Your Stationery Fix
Is there anything better than new stationery? Getting a stationery fix helps us feel organised and like we’ve got our shit together without having to do any of the real work. Winning!
A trip to Officeworks or kikki.K will help bring on a stationery high and help give us the feeling of being organised and get us motivated to use our precious stuff. So in other words, treat yo’ self.
Plus, after a quick browse of the topic guide we can get an idea of what colour the topic feels like and match our books, pens and sticky tabs accordingly. If that’s not being prepared, then we don’t know what is.
Get A Diary And Actually Use It
Next we may as well put our hauls to good use and put all the due dates for the semester in our diaries. It won’t necessarily put an end to those ‘Oh crap, that was due today!?’ moments, but getting a diary’s a good start.
Another way to use a diary to get ahead at the start of semester is to write in when lectures and workshops are happening. We’re more likely to make plans around them if they’re in our diaries, rather than completely forget when we should be attending them at uni.
Make Your Timetable Work For You
When we walk into a class and don’t know anyone, it’s easy to be put off going back the next week. But, if we do our timetables just right and make sure there’s at least one non-stranger in every class, it’s a lot harder to skip. Those “Where the hell are you!?” texts are a surefire way to make us feel a duty to turn up.
The time before or after class can also double as a catch up and that’s more motivation to go, right? Getting our timetables perfect can make or break the perfect semester, so put a little bit of extra love into it and uni will be a breeze.
Set Realistic Milestones
Hands up if you stop turning up to workshops or lectures around week five. Yeah, we’re uni ghosts too sometimes. We all know how it is: we get one week behind and we skip one class to catch up… then before we know it, we’re distracted by the latest Facebook drama and consequently two weeks behind.
Uni is way easier to stomach when it’s broken down. For commitment-phobes 14 weeks of turning up to classes is asking a lot. So, instead of looking at the semester and committing to every class for the whole thing, set realistic milestones – say for example, turning up to every class up until mid-semester break. This way we’re still going, but our inner commitment-phobe isn’t breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of such a long undertaking.
Pre-prepare Outfits
In winter, getting out of bed is basically the equivalent of climbing a mountain; hard, cold, and only worth it when we get to go home. And that’s before we factor in having to change out of comfy winter pjs and into proper adult clothes (because unis don’t do ‘pyjama days’ unfortunately!)
Until ‘pyjama days’ are a real thing, we need to get dressed. Wearing our fave outfit in the first week gives us a weird sort of motivation and confidence. Then there’s the strategic hair washing: we feel obligated to leave the house so we don’t waste an all-important good outfit/hair day. Walking into our first lecture with confidence can help us get ahead, as we’re less likely to want to try and hide up the back. Plus planning in advance gives you one less thing to worry about.
Find Your Ultimate Study Buddy Crew
While we’re still optimistic about semester two, there’s no better time to plan a study group. Even if our friends are in different classes, meeting up once a week to hold each other accountable to do the readings can help. Until we realise that when friends get together they never do anything productive until the gossiping is out of the way, that is. But hey, even if there’s 10 minutes of work done, that’s probably more than we would have done otherwise!
Go forth, fam! Enjoy semester two.
Anne Rathbone is a law student at Flinders University, who spends way too much time with her cat and not enough with actual humans.
(Lead image: Clueless/Paramount HE)