General Stuff? I've been making tons of new friends. I don't know about you all, but I've noticed that Freshmen tend to be the friendliest groups of people. Sophomores think they know it all about the campus and are too high up on the food chain to speak to lowly freshman (actually, the word "sophomore" means "thinks he is clever" or something of that sort; a very egotistical kind of connotation), and Juniors and Seniors for the most part live off campus so they're really not mixing too much outside their already-established groups of friends. This whole freshman-friendly syndrome is sort of a good thing and a bad thing, but I'm definitely enjoying the benefits. It's easy to meet people because everyone's super eager to make friends. Everyone is in the same boat; alone in a sea of new people, and it's scary and exciting and to be honest, we're all feeling the same thing.
Good news is, some people are handling the stress better than others (I am one of the "others"). Learn from the people who seem patient, calm, and on top of their work. They probably do all their homework during the day, and have a good time at night when everyone's around socializing. They're also probably exercising at least 3 times a week for at least an hour each time. Staying healthy is a huge stressor (especially on people ages 16-25), and it'll make you feel better to actually be doing something about being stressed.
The theme of this is basically time management; you need to be able to prioritize and allocate time slots to things that need to happen.
Here's a little starter list of things that most people need to do on a daily/weekly basis, and an estimate of how much time to spend on each thing. Make your own to-do list if you're ever feeling overwhelmed, and you may find that you haven't really got as much as you think to be worried about.
- Laundry (once a week, it usually takes anywhere from 2-3 hours; do this at the same time as monotonous reading. You'll learn/absorb more because you break every 30-45 minutes to switch loads, and you'll be able to recharge and come back after thinking about what you last finished.)
- Homework (every day; depending on your course load it can take from 3-8 hours. Multi-task! You can do laundry and do homework at the same time! Studies show that for every credit hour you spend in class, you should spend 2 hours studying that material and the supplementary reading. 16 Credit Hours a week? 32 hours of studying. It sounds like a lot but if you split it up it's really not too much to handle. Besides, weekends during the day are slow, and you have plenty of down time to get things done during the week.)
- Extracurricular activities (I've only been at school for half a semester, and I've already joined a very time consuming club. I'm really excited about it, but it's definitely going to be a lot of work. My schedule usually pans out so I've got a meeting for something--maybe my scholarship program, or for a club, or for a study group, etc--every night, for about an hour to an hour and a half each. Make sure you get what needs to be done, finished BEFORE you go to your extracurricular if possible.)
- Relaxing (It sounds like it'll be easy to take time away, but really, I get maybe an hour each day to just take a step back. Make sure you set aside time for a nap, or just to mess around on facebook or read a book for fun, at least every other day.)
- Working out and staying healthy (Eat at least once every five hours, and try to get in about an hour of exercising 4 times a week, or even every day if you can fit it in.)
- Being Social (Weekends are good for this. At night, go out and have fun, but during the day, make sure you get your work done.)
Love,
Miss Guided
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