Hello, friends!
A new semester is upon us and in this quick video
I wanna give you a few things that you can do
to make sure that semester goes smoothly.
And one of the biggest things I wanna focus on in this video
is setting yourself up to not burn out and lose motivation
as the semester goes on.
'Cause I know when a new semester comes upon us,
you're full of a lot of motivation, right?
You're full of all this like, new, refreshed energy,
and you really wanna do well in all your classes,
and get involved, and hang out with people,
and do all that stuff.
As the semester goes on, you start to lose that motivation,
right?
Things just pile on, and due dates start to pile up,
and your motivation starts to wane.
So I wanna talk about some things you can do
to make sure that doesn't happen
or at least, to let you mitigate those effects,
and not let them make you lose steam.
But first, I wanna talk about, just the changing of habits.
So in Charles Duhigg's book, The Power of Habit,
which I have read and highly recommend,
he talks about how people are apt
to change their set patterns, their regular behaviors,
more often during large life changes,
such as moving to a new house, or becoming a parent,
or getting married.
People who get married or move to a new house
are really apt to change the brand of coffee they drink
or the cereal they eat.
And the book mentions
that people going through these big life changes
are actually more vulnerable to marketers
because of these huge upheavals in their life.
Now, this is great information for marketers,
maybe not such great information for you
if you wanna be a discerning shopper.
But it is good information for you
if you wanna change you own habits
because just as those habits are vulnerable to marketers,
they're also vulnerable
to intervention on your own part, right?
So a new semester is a perfect time to look at your habits
and see what changes you can make,
see what systems you can build to become more efficient
and effective as the semester goes on.
So I want to talk about a couple of things
that could really help you out in that regard.
But first, I have some quicker tips
that will help you before the semester starts
or right when it starts,
to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.
Number one,
you wanna know exactly what you require
in terms of gear, and textbooks, and all that good stuff
before the semester starts.
Does this mean you need to buy
all of your textbooks right away, before classes start?
Not necessarily.
What I recommend doing
is at least looking at the book requirements,
maybe even emailing teachers and saying,
"Hey, do I actually need the book?
"Do I need the newest edition? Can I get a used edition?"
And just having that knowledge stored in your pocket,
know it in the back of your mind.
Now, if there are books
that are going to take a while to ship,
you can only get them in paper,
you can't rent them as an e-textbook,
or you can't get them from the campus bookstore in a pinch,
yes, you're gonna want to get those books
well ahead of time just to make sure
you can get a good start on the first week of the semester.
I always think, you know, in my opinion,
that it's better to spend a little bit of money
on a textbook you're not quite sure about
than it is to lose a lot of progress
in your first couple weeks of class,
while you're waiting for it to ship
because that can derail an entire semester.
However, for books at you can rent very quickly
via Amazon Kindle or other e-textbook methods,
or maybe something you can find very cheaply in town,
maybe it's okay to book gamble.
You know, wait 'til the first day of class.
See if you can share a book with a friend or something,
or see if it's actually that required.
And if it is, you can go pick it up very quickly.
If not, you've saved yourself a good amount of money.
Another tip that I have used a lot
during my whole college career
was actually put my professor's office hours
on my Google Calendar.
Now, Google Calendar let's you actually create
multiple different calendars that you can turn off and on.
So usually, I would only be showing my class,
and work, and event calendars,
but I had this other calendar
that showed all my professors' office hours
that I could turn on and off at will.
And that way, if I did need to go see a professor,
I didn't need to go digging through the university website
to see when they'd be in the office.
I had it all in the calendar.
I had that set up before the semester started
and everything got busy,
and I could see exactly where their office was,
when I could go in, what their phone number was,
and all that good stuff.
So I highly recommend doing that.
It's really easy, just look on the syllabuses you get,
syllabi, I guess is the plural word,
or look on the university website.
Most professors have their own little website
and you can create that stuff right there.
Now, a couple of other calendar related tips.
Number one, get all of you classes into your Google Calendar
before the semester starts.
And, a little less obvious tip to attach to that,
actually look on the university website and map,
figure out what the locations and room numbers
of your classes are, and put that in the details section
of Google Calendar.
I actually wrote an article last year
about how I, every semester before classes started,
would go around campus, making sure I knew exactly
where my classes were,
especially if I had multiple classes
that had a very small gap of time between them.
That way, I wasn't wasting time getting lost
and it was just a better way to start the semester, I think.
But having that information in Google Calendar,
even if you don't go looking for your classes' locations
personally, in the flesh, before the classes start,
you'll actually have the information
and you can look up a diagram.
I would also link to the campus maps and building diagrams,
like floor plans, in my Google Calendar,
just in case I got really confused
and needed to see where something was.
On more than one occasion,
I actually was able to help somebody else who was lost
and needed to find a classroom on the same floor
that I was going to.
And lastly, on that calendar front,
it's good to put the semester's significant dates
in your calendar.
I'm talkin' stuff like days when there won't be school,
the start of Spring Break, the start of Thanksgiving Break,
when finals are.
That stuff is usually up on the university website.
They usually have a calendar of significant dates
in the semester
and you can transfer that stuff all towards your calendar.
The reason this is a really good idea
is because I advocate every single week,
looking at your calendar on Sunday
and creating a week's plan of events and tasks.
And if those event's are already on the calendar,
you can look at, say Monday, and say,
"Oh, that's Labor Day. I don't have school.
"I can work on a new project or I can go have fun."
And you don't have to go looking at the university website
for those dates during that week.
And you don't have to be surprised about those
significant dates.
You'll know well in advance
because you put in the groundwork before hand.
Now, let's talk about things you can do to ensure
you don't run out of steam as the semester goes on.
You know, you're really motivated as the semester starts.
We wanna make sure you can keep as much of that motivation
as the months wear on, as the assignments and test pile up.
And the first thing that you want to do
is make sure you have good study habits.
And one of the best ways to build good study habits
is to make sure you have a good location for studying.
If you remember in a previous video,
I talked about a study done at The University of Hawaii,
where students literally just turned their desks
towards a wall and put a note on a lamp
that said Study Area.
And the students that actually did this
were able to raise their GPAs.
So before the semester starts
or maybe during the first week,
identify a good location
for you to do most of your studying in.
And you can pair that with a set studying time each day
or maybe a time that works for each day on you calendar.
So maybe the library is a good location for you.
It's quiet, there's a lot of other people working,
so you kinda get that good vibe of focused work.
And you can put on your calendar
that every day from two to four, or something like that,
you're gonna go there, you're going to get all the studying
and reviewing assignments done that you need to get done,
and that'll start building a habit.
So two months down the line
when you're a little bit stressed
and you've a lot more assignments,
you still have that habit engrained.
You're still gonna be at a library every single day,
like you said you would,
and you're keeping steam going throughout the semester.
One final tip for that first week of classes
is to introduce yourself to your professors.
Maybe go up to them after the first class,
shake their hand, introduce yourself.
And that's gonna make it a lot easier
for you to get over the initial mental blocks
for going to office hours
if you happen to need help during the semester.
You already know the professor,
they're a familiar person, familiar face,
and you won't have as much trouble
going in and asking for help.
That's gonna help you if you run into difficulties
during this semester,
which could otherwise cause you to derail on your studies.
The worst thing is getting behind.
Yes, you can recover from getting behind
with a lot of hard work,
but if you can prevent that by seeking help
and assistance when you need it,
and you can make that as easy as possible,
then that's going to be to your benefit.
So I hope these quick tips helped you out.
If you're watching this at the beginning of a new semester,
I hope your new semester gets off to an awesome start
and stays that way.
Thanks for watchin' and I'll see you next week.
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