One of the most intimidating aspects of academic life in college is the humungous volume of work expected to be submitted by the student. Even before the student can take up this work, he/she first needs to go through an insane list of readingmaterial and understand the same so that he can make sense of the work assigned to them for submission.
Attending lectures and completing the daily homework related to these lectures add to the existing workload of submitting assignments before their cut off dates. It gets even worse for students who are also juggling work along with their academics. This can lead to high-stress levels among students.
Students must learn to manage this workload in a structured and scheduled manner to reduce their stress levels and make time for completing their assignments in time.
Things to be remembered!
The first thing that one needs to do is to get their head around the amount of work needed to be completed. Once you have an idea of the amount of work to be completed, you can breakdown the work systematically into small tasks that can then be taken up one at a time in the order of its submission date.
This approach will help you stay ahead and reduce your stress levels. You will also have more time to complete your assignment if you follow this planned and consistent approach. If you fall behind, it is not only going to increase your overdue work pile but will also affect your grades. This then cascades into a series of problems that affect every aspect of your academic life.
This also pushes you to take desperate measures which seldom yield good results. You may start staying up late at night to complete your homework as well as catch-up on the material on your reading list so that you don’t fall behind during classroom lectures. You try to complete studying too many things too quickly.
You look for shortcuts, cut corners and cram for your examinations. All of this leads to a loss of concentration and no real learning can be accomplished using this approach. Whatever you learn today is the foundation of some lesson you that you are being prepared for which you may encounter during future semesters of your course.
The lack of actual learning due to the above mentioned desperate approach compounds your existing problems. If your efforts are continuous to catching up, it is only going to cause more frustration and increase your stress levels. This, in turn, leads to more work to be completed with your ever-existing dearth of time.
Some important points!
- To avoid getting into such a mess, the students need to follow a planned approach, and they should know exactly what they need to accomplish to get a good grade. You need to have a clear view of the time available to you in comparison to the work that needs to be completed.
- One should understand that a major share of the time available to them would be taken up by classroom lectures and other activities at college. They should keep in mind the effective time they have in hand after attending to these lectures and activities in college. They should also look for ways to steal some time out of that spent at college to complete their work.
- For any kind of work, students first need to stop think of it in terms of a pile and start dividing it into small achievable tasks. They should breakdown the workload to these small daily tasks and then try to fit these into the effective time available to them or in between lectures too. This is a simple exercise and chalking out this plan wouldn’t take up too much of your time but should get you well organized and give you a head start.
- Depending on the subjects you have taken up there will be many differences in terms of the study material available for reference as well as the assignments required to be submitted. This may involve reading from a specific textbook, attending lectures and appearing for certain exams. But it does not end there.
- Your participation may also be required in several other activities such as lab work, brainstorming sessions, lecture based homework, reading material, research, writing a thesis attending extra-curricular events and volunteering for activities in college.
- At the beginning of every semester, your professor would go over the syllabus that would be covered and the expectations from the students for getting good grades. Pay close attention and make a note of everything that is a deliverable from your end. Ask questions if you are not sure about something as you need to have a clear understanding of the expected work to be turned in by you.
- It could be completing list of books to be read, the number of quizzes to be taken and the dates for these quizzes, the homework to be submitted, the assignments expected and theircut off dates, and the schedule for your mid-term and final exams.
- Once you have your list ready the next task is to estimate the amount of time needed to cover the study material and identify any additional reading that you may be required do. You also need to allot sufficient time for homework, assignments and other tasks discussed earlier.
- Divide the total you come up with by the number of days available to you in the semester. This gives you the daily commitment required from your end for every subject that you have taken up in this semester.
Time factor is the major thing
You need to keep this time estimate in mind and work accordingly. Refer to your list of tasks to be accomplished for the day and make sure you stick to this commitment. Postponing the work will only lead to acompounding of your workload!
Identify some tasks that can be completed in between lectures and get them done in college itself. If you get stuck with a certain problem, this approach will also help you as you can take the help of the faculty present in the college instead of struggling with it back at home. This will also help to make up for the lost time in case you are also working after college hours.
Stick to your timelines and maintain a checklist of your tasks so that you can track your work and stay on schedule. Avoid wasting time unnecessarily between lectures or after college. Try to incorporate a fixed time in your schedule for recreational purpose but see to it that you do not go overboard with it.
It is important to take breaks, but it is far more important to keep a check on it so that your work schedule doesn’t go for a toss.
If all the advice mentioned above is used to chalk out a plan and to consistently follow it daily, then it would surely reduce the student’s workload. This will give them ample time to concentrate on his assignments as most of the time is usually lost due to approaching a task in an unplanned manner or postponing things on a regular basis.
Following this approach will help you reduce your workload and prevent its conversion from a pile to a mountain!
