Tag Archives: scheduling

Beating Finals Week Ahead of Time

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There is a lot of stress building up as we move into finals week, so I have started compiling a list of ways to combat that stress and use time productively.

  • I normally try not to reward myself for finishing another page on my essay or finishing a worksheet, by watching an episode of TV or scrolling through Facebook, because it often disrupts my thought process. But I feel that in times where stress is high and you’re working on so many things at one time, it can help to give yourself a break once you meet some sort of deadline that you’ve set for yourself. It is also proven that you should not study for too long without a break, as your brain can only focus for so long on the same thing. Taking short breaks will keep your mind fresh and help deter writer’s block and other lethargic thought processes. This leads me to my next point…                               
  • Set small deadlines for yourself. If you can make some sort of schedule that plans out small workloads for each day leading up to a final exam or paper, it will make everything you have to accomplish seem much more manageable. In order to organize yourself, it often helps to write down everything you want to get done and then write out when you will do each item on your list. This always helps relieve stress for me because I generally only have one thing to do on each day leading up to an exam and then I am not cramming.
  • Besides your small rewards for meeting smaller deadlines, it is so important to take time to relax. It may be hard to find the time to do so, but it is very beneficial in the long run. Allowing time for your brain to rest, allowing yourself to think and talk about something that is not directly related to your studies, can help rejuvenate your brain.
  • Eat well and get some exercise! Food and physical activity can help reduce stress so much. Exercising will help produce endorphins, which are natural mood elevators, while also reducing the cortisol levels. Certain foods can make you feel bloated and uncomfortable after you eat, which makes it harder to study and stay focused. Eating protein will help keep your brain sharp and fruits and veggies will help keep your eyes focused.
  • Make sure you are drinking water! I always seem to have a problem with this and find that I feel so much better when I drink more water. Whether or not I’m actually less stressed is questionable, but I do feel good about drinking something that I know is healthy.                                                          
  • Stick to your schedule once you’ve made it. It’s so easy to forget about it or lose yourself in other tasks when there’s a lot going on, but making sure you follow your list for the day will help make sure that you get everything done. This will help reduce stress, simply because you aren’t waiting until the last minute to accomplish these tasks.

Have any tips for the weeks leading up to finals? Share/comment below!

Why being Busy has Made me Happier and more Productive

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Last year, when I was just starting out at Scripps, I would try to leave the majority of my weekend free so I could get schoolwork and other errands done. Having events and obligations to work around seemed like it would limit my productivity, so my solution was just to plan absolutely nothing. At the time, I truly thought this was the “responsible” thing to do, because it meant that I could get more done, and thus feel better about myself. I definitely did get a lot done, but looking back, I don’t think it was the most effective means for managing my time. The thing is, I turned down a lot of opportunities to go to meaningful social events because I was convinced that I needed to get ahead for the week. Instead of taking the two hours on a Saturday night to go to an event that would have connected me to others and made me happy, I would spend those two hours in the Clark dorm computer lab. The problem with this was that I could have done the work during the day and then gone out at night, and still have gotten the exact same amount of work done, but because I wouldn’t plan anything all day, I would be more likely to procrastinate during the day because I didn’t have any events to work around.

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This semester however, I have scheduled in a wide range of various social events and extracurriculars (many of which are off-campus). At the beginning of the semester I was worried I would get behind on school-work or other responsibilities, but I’ve actually done a much better job at managing my time when I have more things planned. For instance, every month or so I go away for the entire weekend for Ultimate Frisbee tournaments. I never end up doing homework on these weekends, but somehow it always ends up working out because having the knowledge that I am going away gives me an incentive to cross things off my list ahead of time so I don’t have to worry about it as much during the weekend. These weekends have also helped me learn how to prioritize certain assignments and tasks over others. Sometimes you can’t get everything you need to get done without sacrificing your mental or physical health, and I personally value my health over good grades or productivity. Thus, I have learned how to prioritize what needs to get done first, what can be done later, and what can be done someone hastily.

In addition, I also used to feel oddly guilty for planning too many “fun” things during my weekend, because I would sometimes hear my peers complaining about how they “got up at 5:00am to study for an exam,” or how they had “spent the entire weekend in the library,” and I would feel oddly competitive, like I had to prove that I was a good student.

Something I have really learned in college is that there is really no use comparing school or work schedules with others. Unlike high school, everyone’s college schedules are so incredibly different given the nature of how varied scheduling is for classes, jobs, and extracurriculars. Another thing I have realized, is that there is always someone who is doing more than you, or who is more productive than you, and at a certain point it’s out of our control and not worth feeling bad about. Plus, being balanced and well-rounded is extremely important in my opinion, so even the people who seem like they are absurdly productive and have it all together might actually be super stressed and unbalanced the majority of the time.

Doing school work is important. Working is important. Doing laundry, running errands, and paying bills is important. However, going to dinner with friends, eating chocolate, taking walks outside, playing sports, going to parties, and reading for fun is also important. Taking the time to do things I love has made me more productive in the long run, because when I don’t schedule in fun things, I inevitably burn out and lose interest. Of course, there is a fine-line between having a schedule that keeps you motivated and busy in a good way, and having a schedule that makes you stressed and busy in a way that is damaging to your health. It is important to know yourself, and plan a school and work schedule that is based off of your individual needs and stress-level, rather than anyone else’s.

PERMs, Scheduling, and Coveted Classes

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At the beginning of the semester, everyone is frantically trying to get into the classes they want, rearranging their schedules, and PERMing into classes they want to be in. This process is chaotic, and can be one of the most stressful times of the semester.

Sometimes, you’re trying ot get into classes that you need for you major, or are trying to get into a class with a certain professor. All of this organizing and reorganizing of classes can be overwhelming, but I had a friend once tell me that you should go to the schedule you want, not the schedule you have. What I’ve learned is that this could not be more true. In all of my experiences as a student at the 5Cs, I have learned that if you want a class, showing up is the most important step to getting in. PERMing into a class you want is the first step, but it takes the extra step of actually going to the class on the first day to solidify, in the professor’s eyes, your desire to take it.

This semester, there was a class at Pitzer that I really wanted to get into, but it was only open to Pitzer students and I decided that the best way for me to get in was to PERM as early as possible. As soon as I read the course description, I knew that the class would be a great experience and PERMed right the and there. Even though it was very early and arguably too early to PERM, as no one had even registered for the course yet, I knew that I would show as one of the first PERMs and knew that that would help me secure a spot in the class. A few days after registration had opened up for all students, the professor emailed everyone who had PERMed into the class and asked us to come to a meeting so that he could discuss some of the details of the class and give us more of a feel for what we could expect. Only about fifteen people showed up to the meeting, which my professor later noted made his decision about who would be in the class a lot easier, and there were only ten spots open in the class. The professor did tell those of us who were chosen to be in the class, that having a meeting, seeing who actually showed up was the biggest factor in how he chose the ten of us who are now in the class because he didn’t pick anyone who didn’t show up at the meeting.

Last semester, there was a history class at CMC that I really wanted to take and was one of over twenty PERMs, but I emailed the professor and made a case for myself, asking if she thought there might be room after the first day. When I showed up to class that day, there were only about fifteen people, and she ended up accepting my PERM because I had come to class.

Long story short, emailing professors, PERMing into classes, but most importantly, showing up to the classes you want on the first day is so important if you are not registered for a particular course and would like to be. It’s worked for every class I wanted to get into but wasn’t yet registered for. Best of luck to you all!