The end is near -- Week 14 and counting

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Samuel Johnson

                 Amazing, isn’t it? It seems like only a few weeks ago that the semester began.  Remember, it seemed like 16 weeks seemed to be such a LONG time, yet it goes by so quickly.

                 Now, we BLINKED and it’s Week 14. Three. THREE weeks until the end of the semester and finals. Less than a month.

                Well, now. Less than a month doesn’t seem so bad. A month is plenty of time to finish my projects and papers. I don’t even have to start studying for another 2 weeks. Right? WRONG! The last month of Fall semester flies by faster than the first three months combined. I call it the slippery slide to the end.
Part of that is due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Parked towards the end of November, most students make the mistake of thinking that Thanksgiving Break will be their saving grace. Time to catch up on everything they have let go until now. Yeah. That doesn’t usually work very well. Why is that? In one word: distractions. Platefuls of them! Visiting family. Football. Sales. You name it, and it is probably a distracting factor during the Thanksgiving Break.

               So. What should a new college student know about the race to the end of the semester? Start planning now.  

Go ahead. Get the grumbling out of the way.

                I know it isn’t what most students WANT to hear, but it is true. Look at your long-term projects. Look at your courses. Where do you need to devote your time? What is the best plan of attack. Make a to-do list Then follow it. Adjust it when necessary. If you haven’t done it already, the last four weeks are when you really have to apply yourself and grind it out. You may have to sacrifice time you spend on other activities (friends, work, significant others) and buckle down with your books. To keep yourself motivated, at the very end of the to-do list, put down a reward for yourself once your last final was done. When I was an undergraduate, immediately after my last final was completed, I went home to watch my favorite movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pCv7k_Hzvg

I had seen this movie a dozen times before, but that didn’t matter. The point was so much of my time was freed up that I COULD watch a movie I had seen a hundred times before. It doesn’t matter what you choose as a reward, as long as it is something that allows you to relax and mark the fact that you have completed your first semester as a college student.

© 2012 Jane E. Brooks