Surviving College: Semester In Review 3.1

Hello peeps,

I have been having a pretty swell couple of days, if I do say so myself. So, I figure why not use the high of positive vibes to write this post.

Realistically speaking we are 3 weeks into the new semester; third year of college, second semester. What y'all would call the last semester of junior year. So far, we are time barred, some classes just started this week or a week late, there is an ongoing lecturers' strike but, I will say, we have met nearly all our lecturers(literally going out  on a limb for us) and they mean business and I like that.

Let's back track a bit though, to last semester. Fam, it was rough. I only had three units, which I will admit I took for granted. I really want to pin the blame on someone. Something. Anyone? Anything!But, when it is all said and done, excuse me while I put my big girl pants on, it was all me.

Class attendance. Them Friday classes tho'. I know I can count on one hand how often I missed class on Friday but the impact was felt. Of course, I met the attendance threshold, in fact, surpassed it, but bruh! Missing one college class is a definite no-no especially with the bulk of the units that I have.It's a no-brainer, but I learnt that the hard way sad to say.


Work-school balance. There was no such thing, not even remotely, work won and I am disappointed in myself for that. I had one afternoon class which ate into 4 hours of work. I still had to meet my weekly hours regardless. Long story short, I would work 9 hours two days out of the week, leaving little or no time for all things school and school related. There I said it, I messed up. Of course I was tired, dog tired, hence the whole attendance 'thing'.

Time was of the essence and I think it was abused. I was not reading or studying enough, we have already established that. But nearly every week one class or another was cancelled, some topics, given that we were in a little crisis situation could have been covered in a single class which had us having classes to the  very last day more or less. I mean whatever happened to study leave? There was also this thing where each unit had at least two facilitators and coherence was not a thing, nearly every one of them on a different wavelength from the other. Welcome to public university, where being shortchanged is the order of the day.

Back to me though, exam season was in full swing when I realized that I do this really stupid thing, where I wait to master key concepts or actually familiarize myself with certain course material a few days to the exam. Often, a few days to finals, I am just a huge ball of throbbing nerves on legs; pulling all-nighters, cramming, minimal study breaks, bluntly put NOT 'A' material.

Improvements? For one, this semester, I plan to be attending every class. So far, not too bad, I missed one class last Friday since I had a  hunch that it would be cancelled and what do you know? It was! Punctuality will also have to make several guest appearances. Getting ahead on my lessons would also be the ultimate dream seeing how notes and course outlines have been graciously flooding my inbox. Study time's bar on the graph just has to increase.

My war paint is on, and I am ready for the assignments and study binge weekends. Hopefully it will be a different story in the next semester in review.

Have a good one!