Wildflower: Learning To Deal

Most of us know, and loathe, the stresses that come with being a student, whether it be in high school or college. For the sake of relevancy, I'm going to focus on college stress. Stress comes with the student territory, but that doesn't mean that we can't effectively manage it. Now that I'm in my third year of college, I think I have finally caught on to how to cope with the tug-of-war for my time.

Here are some tips that I've learned and try my best to follow:

1) When scheduling your classes, try to make sure to leave enough time for work, rest, boyfriend, or whatever else you will have to juggle. For example, I scheduled my classes so I go in at a decent time in the morning and get done early in the afternoon on most days. This way, I have flexibility for work and studying.

2) Don't be in a hurry to graduate. I know people who have/are taking 17, 18, 19 credit hours, work full-time, and struggle because of that. Their grades are suffering because they're taking on too much at a time. The way I see it is, if you take a reasonable number of credit hours it's easier to focus on getting good grades in all of your classes. Yes, you may be in school for a little longer, but at least you tried your absolute hardest and made your transcript look amazing.

3) Don't have unreasonable expectations of yourself. If you're tired, then take a nap and resume studying later and don't feel guilty! You need to be well rested in order to perform your best. If you're hungry, take a break and eat. If you just want to hang out for a little bit, then do it. If I'm feeling sick or tired, I sit up in my bed and read or study in between commercials. Some people don't like this, but it works for me.

4) Make your surroundings as relaxing as possible. I like to burn lots of candles and incense while I'm studying or doing homework, the mixture of scents really get my creative juices flowing and allow me to focus more. I also have to have my room clean before I sit down and study, otherwise I focus on how I need to clean other than study.

5) Instead of waiting until the last day or two to study for a test, study a little bit every day. I know this is constantly pounded into our heads, and it took me a while to realize this, but it does work. If you make notecards to study, make the corresponding notecards for each chapter as you finish a chapter. Same thing for study guides. When you do it this way, you have so much extra time the last few days to actually study from the notecards or study guide instead of filling everything out.