Getting Started on a New Semester

Written on: August 24, 2018

“When you’re just chilling out at the beginning of the semester and then all of the sudden you have 4 tests, 2 labs, a paper, and a presentation due in 2 days” Does that sound like you? It was definitely me at some point. Why is it that the second half of the semester always seems harder than the first half? On one hand, the professor is done with the easy material, but on the other hand you know how the class is flowing and what to expect for the assignments and tests. So why do students feel like they’re falling behind during the second half of the semester? Because they didn’t get ahead in the first half.

I’m a huge fan of the “get ahead, stay ahead” method because it allows you to place time into your schedule for fun things! Getting ahead of your assignments and understanding your schedule is the key to not overloading yourself throughout the rest of the semester. I remember the semester I started using the “get ahead stay ahead” method and I got sick halfway through the semester. Thankfully, I had already finished my assignments for that week the previous week and only had to do minimal work while sick. That sold me on the concept. In general, getting ahead is the hard part; staying ahead is just like staying behind in terms of workload. If you get ahead when the semester is new, you’ll have no problem. -Scott