時間の有効活用！

ジョシュアです！Soooo how’d I do? On my previous post, I talked about how managing my time was one of the things I struggled with in the first semester. Since that post, I have done a couple things to try and improve upon my time managing skills.

McGraw!

The first thing I did was finally sign up for a learning consultation at the McGraw Learning Center in Frist. I had heard great things about it, so I was excited to finally be able to try it out. Signing up was super simple; all I had to do was select a time and date and fill out a quick form. My advisor during the whole consultation ended up being another student-athlete two grades above me, so it was much easier to relate to. I felt much more confident talking to her since she would understand the commitment needed to do a varsity sport at college.

The meeting itself was very informal, and there wasn’t much of a set structure to it. We started by talking about why I decided to do a learning consultation, what I wanted to get out of it, what my biggest concerns were, etc. You know, the general stuff. It was really tailored to my needs, so I decided to talk through all my classes one by one and find solutions to anything I was worried about in each class. Most of my concerns revolved around all the reading I would be doing, especially coming from a fall semester with very little reading. This semester I have at least 100~150 pages of dense reading a week, which is not at all what I’m used to. In fact a tiny part of me chose to take the BSE track just because there’ll be less reading and writing! I really have no idea how Emiri does all her HUM sequence readings…

Going back to the learning consultation, I learned ways to complete my readings for all my classes more efficiently, and how to prioritize them based on how much time I had and which class it was. The help I received from this hour long consultation even let me think of more tweaks I could make to improve my daily routine. For instance I marked all the office hours and study sessions available for all my classes in my calendar so I can easily pop into one if the time matches when I don’t have class or practice.

Moar calendar!!

Another thing I started doing recently to use my time more efficiently is planning out my week in detail in a calendar. During midterms I did something similar but in Evernote. During midterms I was overwhelmed with the amount of work I had, so planning everything out curbed my panic and stress to reasonable levels. I thought this semester I might apply this to all my weeks during the semester, not during midterms. By visualizing all the free time I have, I can have a rough idea of how busy I am each night. I can balance the workload among the 7 days of the week without feeling like I’m going to get swamped near the end of the week because I didn’t do enough on Monday and Tuesday.

Usually it wouldn’t say “free time” but instead have tasks that I would plan to do during that time. Looking at my week like this makes me realize that I spend a lot of my week studying.

The Perfect Study Space

In addition to optimizing my study habits and study schedule, I also went out exploring to see where my favorite places to study were. Visiting all these places, I found that I valued a personal desk to study on, and lots of natural light. The natural light part doesn’t quite work out if I’m studying late at night, but it feels so nice to have the sun shining through the window when I’m studying!

Here are my very informal, very rough reviews of some of the study spots on campus!

Chancellor GreenPros

very quiet
some desks had comfy looking chairs but they were all taken – might need to try those out!

Cons

kinda unsettling because of how beautiful the building was with the stained glass
pretty dark considering the abundance of windows

Firestone Library

(not my favorite, but my go-to because of how convenient it is)

Pros

huge, so there is bound to be a place to study
close to my room and classes
recently renovated; there is an entire new wing that looks super clean that I have yet to use because it’s so popular ):

Cons

all the goods spots get taken quickly because they are, well, good

Friend Center

Pros

in the same building as my computer science precept, so super convenient
great natural light

Cons

far from the rest of campus so hard to go to unless I’m in the area (aka for my COS precept)
I can’t find a good water fountain nearby so I occasionally die of thirst when I study

Lewis Science Library

(only visited here once so not much to say, sorry!)

Pros

great natural light
lots of comfy furniture
Treehouse Reading Room – Lewis has some eccentric design/structural elements, and this room is a perfect example of it

Cons

inconvenient when considering distance from my dorm room and classes; its down the hill so coming back up can be a struggle!

2nd at Ivies!

The swim and dive team wrapped up their season with a 2nd place finish at the Ivy League Championship meet last week. People had told me Ivies at DeNunzio wasn’t like any swim meet I’d ever experienced, and they were right! I have never seen such an excited crowd of supporters at a meet, ever.