How I do it (Part One)
Midyear enrollments are fast approaching and Murdoch have asked me to do a post on one of the most common concerns people have when considering enrolling, namely that they won't have enough time to study. This post is more going to deal with balancing studying and having a social life and I will do another tomorrow dealing with work and University and how the two sometimes negatively interact.
When you're doing a full-time degree there is no getting away from the fact that it does take up a significant portion of your average week. On the surface it may seem like you only have to be on campus for your contact hours, whatever those may be, but you also need to account for the time you will spend doing important activities such as tutorial readings, assignment preparation and the extra time actually writing an assignment can take. When you factor in any time you might have to spend working a part or full-time job and a few hours to spend with friends or family it starts to seem incredibly daunting.
For my first few months at University I found creating a balance between the social life of living in the Village and the demands of my degree very difficult. I would either spend entire nights locked away in the library, researching for assignments or I would go to the other extreme and put all thoughts of studying out my head while I went out drinking with friends. Neither extreme was particularly healthy but I did find my balance and from that I came up with a few little rules to govern my behaviour and help me better manage my time.
1. Have a set starting and stopping point
I struggled at first because I would over-study and then be exhausted the next day for class. I would go up to the library around nine at night and not leave until two in the morning. Being tired meant that I was never really studying as much or as effectively as I could and so I never took in as much information as I should have. I did find that if I set myself a set time to start and stop studying that I would be much more productive in that burst, rather than being unfocused for a longer period of time.
2. Keep a calendar
Buy a calendar. Write down the due dates for every single assignment and exam you are going to have for the semester. If someone invites you out, simply check the calendar. If there's a big assignment or exam due soon then you should probably be writing it or studying for it instead of drinking heavily. Combining the two is not recommended.
3. Have a study space
If you share a house with friends, or live in the village, the chances are you are probably limited in your study space. While studying in a common space, such as your kitchen or living room, may work for a little while sooner or later someone will disturb your study flow. I personally like to use the library to study as you are surrounded by like-minded people and during the day there is a whole section devoted to quiet study.
4. Put the books down and go outside
Locking yourself away and studying for long periods of time is fine, provided you also get out of the house and do something completely unrelated to studying. I would often stop studying for an exam and simply go for a fifteen or twenty minute walk. It's amazing how much easier it is to study if you take such breaks. Likewise, after a big assignment is finished, take a day off and go to the cinema with friends, or go clubbing (I'm told that's what kids these days do). Dwelling on what you might have done differently in an exam or assignment is the most wasteful avenue of thought and time.
5. Relax
University is not life and death, though it can sometimes seem like it is. If you don't think, for any myriad of reasons, that you'll make the deadline for an assignment then talk to your tutor. Nine times out of ten they will give you an extension. Though, you should never get into the habit of asking for them. Failing a unit or an assignment is also not the end of it all. There are always allowances to be made and ways of making the failed units up.
I will be putting up the second post on this topic sometime tomorrow. Until then why not tell me what your suggestions for balancing University and your social life are?
5 comments:
When moving to Perth to pursue study I consider the idea of living in shared accommodation the lifestyle and social side would get the best of me.
So I moved into a shared house with people who don't study. Was it a good decision? Well I will never know because I never got the chance to experience life living on campus. My friends said it was the best time of uni. I limited myself from making friends because I could only do the social thing in class.
Currently in second year and loving the course I'm studying, however work, uni and trying to have a social life are all colliding. The added stress is at the end of the year I have to move out and find a new place, I think I might need to sign my life away on a lease.
Thanks for the advice, second year is great and I am more relaxed more enjoying the study and having fun with the direction I go in rather then panic.
Cheers.
User 14422465
When moving to Perth to pursue study I consider the idea of living in shared accommodation, however the lifestyle and social side would get the best of me and I knew I wouldn’t be able to balance the two.
I decided to move into a shared house with people who don't study. Was it a good decision? Well I will never know because I never got the chance to experience life living on campus. My friends who did said it was the best time of university. I limited myself from making friends that lived on campus and could only do the social thing in class, its been difficult to network and I don’t really have the personal relationship that most first years have because they lived together.
Currently in second year and loving the course I'm studying, however work, uni and trying to have a social life are all colliding. The added stress is at the end of the year I have to move out and find a new place; I think I might need to sign my life away on a lease.
Thanks for the advice, second year is great and I am more relaxed and enjoying the study.
It would be great if you could include some pictures of your time at campus, also some highlights and downsides to living on campus.
What would you do differently?
Also any advice for people considering the big move to university.
What would improve your blog post would be to break it into sections, have bold subsections to break up the big chunks of writing.
Look forward to reading the next blog.
Cheers,
Craig
User 14422465
Hi there,
I really enjoyed this article! I particularly enjoyed your advice on not over doing it or alternatively, under doing it. I found that I studied way too much in my first few weeks and I began to fade out after that.
By scheduling my study and sticking to this schedule, I found I was able to continue a steady pace for the rest of semester.
I am interested in your study space being the library as I seem to begin my work but tend to look around for any distraction I can whether it be music or people watching...how do you stay focused?
Would love to know!
Thanks,
Emma.
First off, thank you both for commenting on this! I have been so caught up in work these past few days but I am hear to answer your questions.
First off, Craig (or User 14422465 which does have a rather nice ring to it).
Was living off campus the right decision? I think you rightly pointed out that you didn't want to risk trying to juggle socialising, studying & letting both slip.
Did you miss out on a quintessential student experience? Absolutely not. Every single person will have an entirely unique set of moments that characterise their time at University. Some will be amazing, some negative but all of them are what make the experience so special.
That being said, I am really sorry to hear you are struggling to network. Meeting new people is hard and living with them does tend to break the ice a lot quicker. Have you considered joining a club or society at Murdoch? They can be a fantastic way to meet people that you might like.
Now on a separate note, you mentioned the concern of socialising and studying. I learned fairly quickly that I would never have enough time in a day to do everything I needed, and wanted, to do. The temptation to do just the 'fun' stuff was nearly overwhelming and the guilt that would follow those kind of binges was kind of crushing. So what I did to counteract this was to accept that I would never have enough time and then to simply plan my efforts more appropriately. Working smarter, not necessarily harder. In a week I would probably spend roughly 60 - 70% of my time doing the 'necessary' stuff. This could include studying, working at the cafe, grocery shopping, attending class etc. The other 30% of my week, however, could be spent doing whatever I wanted. Funnily enough I found I enjoyed that 30% far more than when I spent 100% of my time doing that same stuff simply because I had set it aside specifically to relax and enjoy myself.
I hope this entirely unasked and, probably, unwanted piece of wisdom helps!
Hey there Emma!
First off, thanks for the kind words! I have sadly neglected my blogging but it is nice to see that someone is getting some value from what I have written.
To answer why I would pick the library you need a quick glimpse of my desk and study. From where I am currently sitting I can see a remote control helicopter, a sonic screwdriver, a healthy stack of spider-man comics and just about any other kind of distraction you can imagine.
That being said, as you've pointed out, staying focused in a Library is not necessarily much easier.
The trite truth is that I managed to train my brain to maintain some semblance of focus through force of will. It's not easy and it's not fun but if you can force your brain to focus on a piece of work for a slowly increasing amount of time it will gradually get easier, or at least less hard. A lot of people suggest using timers and the like to help you keep track and if that's what you want to do then you should. I have found that by forcing myself to focus for 30 minutes followed by a 5 minute break had a similar effect to what I told our friend Craig. I was able to focus and get some of my work done and appreciated the 5 minute downtime.
However, there will always be days that you just can't muster the focus. That's absolutely ok. There is nothing worse for your concentration and ability to study than self-flagellation. Sometimes it's good to put the book down and do something completely unrelated until you feel ready to tackle the work again. The real trick is knowing when it's not just laziness.
Hope this helped and thanks for reading and commenting!
Great tips! We try to help our students out with the best tips possible through studylane.com.au as well. Good luck!
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