When you start studying at a tertiary level, your life starts to change. You move out, get a job to pay your rent, study enough to maintain an average GPA and generally feel a sense of dread most of the time.

If you work 20 hours a week to make ends meet and stick to the (absolutely cooked) recommended 50 hours of study, how are you gonna see your boyfriend? Hang out with your bestie? Form those Trey Parker and Matt Stone creative partner relationships?

Accept That You Can’t Conquer All Of Them, All Of The Time

The old saying is that you can only make two out of three work. You can do great at uni and have a fabulous social life, but you’re probably gonna be broke as shit. You can have lots of money and friends, but you might fail three subjects in the meantime.

These things are for sure manageable, but it’s worth accepting that you’re not a blonde sorority girl in the 80s who has a bouncy ponytail, plays tennis all the time, gets straight HDs, parties just hard enough that it’s fun and not a problem, and already has like, a career.

Sometimes, you’re gonna have to put social events during the week aside, or sacrifice that extra shift for some assignments or bubble bath time.

Time Manage Like A Fucking Machine

Gurl, get a bullet journal. Write down every single thing you need to have done that week, then assign those tasks to days you can fit it in. If your commute to work or uni is longer than 20 minutes, bring your laptop or books with you and squeeze in an extra study sesh. If you finish uni in the early afternoon, schedule a bite to eat or a quick beer with your bestie before you go to work or home to study. You can even assign yourself a certain time each day to stop studying. Or, you can banish study on weekends by beefing up your weekday grind.

Squish Them Together

If you study with mates in some random beer garden, you’ve nailed your social needs without sacrificing your assignments. Sure, you won’t be as efficient as you would be alone in a dark room, but its fucking better than not studying at all for five hours.

You could also look for a more social job, like a bar or café position, and splice your social time with your work time. You can even be a freak and bring your laptop to work with you to smash out a Uni Junkee article while you take your break. Jesus Christ you could take one further — work at uni, wear a disguise, study in the park with your mum, and move really fast between buildings so noone actually knows where you are at any time. Ring up JK Rowling and grab a time turner.

I’m on such a roll I need to go take a break and patent some things.

Learn Discipline

I’m gonna be totally transparent here and say that I didn’t actually understand what discipline meant until Beyoncé put out that Ivy Park ad about her going running every morning.

I’ll be the first to admit I have so little discipline that sometimes I stare at the TV when it isn’t on because I just don’t really feel like doing anything. If you train yourself to do things like get up an hour earlier and smash out a check point, or force yourself to go outside and see your friends when you’ve entered that weird hermit agoraphobic phase of studying, the rest of your life is gonna flow a lot smoother.

(Lead image: Insecure/HBO)