by Irene Lizarraga

Created on: July 23, 2009   Last Updated: September 16, 2009

Getting good results once in college is requires time and dedication, but this time of your life is also a great opportunity to improve your social life and meet people that are interested in the same things you do. This people might end up being your colleagues, bosses or business associates, so cultivating friendships at college will also benefit your professional career. Studying, playing and (optionally) sleeping is possible, and just needs a bit of willpower and a clear set of priorities.

Plan ahead
As soon as you get your schedule for the semester, write it down. Getting a good wall calendar where you can note down all your assignments, exams and other important dates will help you keep on track and not leave things for the last minute. But not all is work, and you can write in there the important social events you're interested in attending. This will help planning your workload long term, like for example seeing if you have to hand in three assignments right after an awesome music festival that you really want to attend.

Get things out of the way as soon as possible
Are there assignments that you know you can do way before their deadlines? A classic example are lists of books to read and review before the end of term, which are usually handed in by the teacher on the first week of lessons. If you have a list of this kind of assignments, you can start working on them when you have free time. The lack of urgency will probably help you create a better work. It's also useful when you plan on borrowing the book from the college library, since there's usually a limited number of copies and they will be all on loan when the deadline gets close.

Set aside time to study
Once you know how the workload for the semester looks like, set aside enough time a day to study and stick to it. Try to match it to the time of the day you are able to concentrate better, and if your house or room is too noisy go to the library. Same as with going to the gym, having a friend or two doing the same helps reducing the chances of missing this study time, and group studying can be more fun and productive than just studying alone. If you know that you're going to be unable to study for a week for any reason, schedule some extra time the previous two weeks to avoid exhausting yourself. And remember to go to class as well...

Write notes right after lectures
Dedicate 10 minutes after a lecture to check your notes, correct anything that is not clear and make any extra annotations while the content

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