Make a plan
- nicolernolle
- Aug 17, 2022
- 3 min read
Another school year is about to begin. Welcome back! Are you excited, nervous, energized, terrified, resigned, ready to take on the world and all of its opportunities? Back-to-school season is often a mixed bag of emotions with each year presenting new positives and negatives. Maybe it’s your first year as a college student and you are busy preparing for a new life unlike one you have ever known before – one on campus, with more freedom and bigger challenges that you have faced in the past. Maybe you are a returning student looking forward to reuniting with friends and professors you haven’t seen for months. Either way, your back-to-school routine probably looks different than it did as you were growing up – gone is the giddy joy of shopping for shiny new school supplies with your parents, here is the responsibility to plan for a successful semester.

While the freedom and independence of being away from home is exhilarating and full of potential for fun and new experiences, it also comes with many new responsibilities. Getting to class on time, making sure your assignments are completed to the best of your ability, managing relationships with roommates, classmates and faculty, keeping track of your budget and finances, and taking care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally are just a few of the tasks you will need to plan for this fall. If these types of responsibilities are new to you, they can feel overwhelming.

Recognizing that the changes to your routine obligations and daily responsibilities are significant and then brainstorming ways to deal with those new responsibilities can give you a real advantage through the first few months of the school year. When and where do you plan to study? Do you work best early in the morning or late at night? How can you structure your schedule to take advantage of your peak performance times? Where can you find academic help on campus? Is there a tutoring center or are there TAs? Who can you go to if you need some emotional support? Does your campus have a health center with counselors or does your dorm have a resident assistant who could help you? Having the answers to these questions before you are in the midst of a crisis is immensely helpful. Having a plan to fall back on when things don’t go exactly as you thought they would can give you the sense of control and power you need to take more risks and feel secure while doing so.

If you are a returning student and have those daily responsibilities and campus resources under control, you can take planning one step further by taking some time to think about what you want to accomplish this term and what you will need to do to achieve those goals. Setting a few specific goals for the term and planning your approach to those goals can keep you focused and help you to get the most out of your time in college. It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of classes and the fun of being on campus with friends and to neglect taking the actions you need to take to get to the next step. Do you want to focus on boosting your GPA to give yourself a better chance at getting into graduate school? Do you need to research and apply for internships to give yourself some work experience? Do you want to pursue a leadership position on campus? Do you want to move off campus and into an apartment soon? Do you need to find a work study job or a job off campus to finance a semester abroad? Do you need to commit to a major and learn more about the requirements for graduation within that program?

Once you have decided what you want to accomplish this term, write your goals down and make a plan to achieve them. If you want to make progress don’t just put your goals on a list, put them on your schedule. What is the first step you need to take? When do you need to take that step? Do you need help from anyone to make that first step happen? How about the next step? What is it and when does it need to be accomplished? What does success look like? Can you measure the results of your work and hold yourself accountable for reaching your objective?
Check in with yourself regularly to access your progress and keep yourself moving forward. At the end of the semester, you will have accomplished more than just earning a few more credits toward graduation.
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