Tips to Waking Up Early

This is a topic I have always struggled with.  I am such a night owl that getting up early is nearly impossible for me.  I have come up with some tips on those rare occasions when I need to wake up early that I have found helpful, and I hope they can help you too!

If you need to start waking up on a regular basis (like I will need to in a couple months when I graduate!), then you should try starting off gradually.  Last semester I didn’t take classes before 11:40am and it was the PERFECT schedule for me.  However, since I knew that in the near future I would need to get up much earlier than that, I decided it would be a good idea to take earlier classes.  I signed up for an 8am that I quickly dropped after the second week because it was too big of a time adjustment.  If you give yourself time to adjust little by little to waking up earlier, then your body will find it easier over time.  Now I am able to wake up at 9:30am without much of a struggle.

There are many activities that you can do in the evening that will help you to have a smoother morning.  The first thing you can do is to go to bed early enough so that you get a full eight hours of sleep.  This will allow you to wake up early still feeling refreshed.  Also, try to not eat a large meal right before bed.  Eating late at night may cause you to have trouble falling asleep.  The best activity you can do the night before is to prepare for the morning.  This could include laying out your outfit, packing your bag, preparing food, etc.  Prepare as much as you can the night before to allow for more free time in the morning in which you can sleep a little longer or even have some relaxing free time.

A good trick to getting yourself out of bed in the morning is to place your alarm clock away from your bed.  This will force you to actually get out of bed instead of hitting the snooze button and risking falling back asleep.  Once you are out of bed, you should turn on the lights and drink a cold glass of water to help wake your body up faster.   It is also beneficial to wake up a little bit earlier than you need to and go to the gym and shower.  Making time for the gym will wake you up and energize you for the day.  Even if you don’t have time to hit the gym, just showering can help jump start your day.  As a last ditch effort to gain some energy, coffee is a great alternative.  I love a cup of coffee on the days when I am extremely tired, but I find that by the evening I tend to crash.

Mornings can be difficult, but if you get your days started earlier, you can take advantage of the extra time you now have.  I have noticed how much more time I have to do my daily activities when I don’t waste half of the day sleeping!

Study Tips

In honor of having my first test of the semester this coming Monday, I want to write about some helpful study tips! Getting good grades is important to me, so I will start studying in the next couple of days.  You have heard all of the standard answers: don’t procrastinate, take breaks often, do practice problems, etc.  These are certainly helpful and you should do them, but there are others that are also important to follow.

The first tip to keeping your grades up is to actually attend class, and take notes while you are there.  Taking notes allows you to add extra information that the teacher says and write it in your own words.  It will also help you to recall the information later on when it comes time for the test.

My second tip is to know when you need help and to not be afraid to get the help you need.  Most teachers are willing to answer any question you have, especially if you attend their office hours.  I plan on going to my teacher’s study hours on Friday to go over a couple of the topics that I don’t fully understand.  I find this to be very helpful because the teachers know what you will need to identify for the upcoming exam and will most likely focus on the most important topics.  Often times they can also come up with practice questions that will allow you to work out the problems on your own and see where you are having a problem.  They also usually resemble the exam questions, which is an even bigger bonus! 

The third tip I have is to find a quiet location where you can focus.  I love to study in the comfort of my own room, but sometimes my roommates can be too loud for me to concentrate.  When that is the case I either go to a study room on campus, the library, or a friend’s house if we both need to study for the same test.  If there is too much noise in the background, it can make it difficult for the information to sink in and stick.

My fourth tip is to reach out to a peer tutor or create your own study group.  Last semester I had to take a history class that I had purposely put off until my last year in college (history is my least favorite subject by far).  I knew it would be a challenging course for me, so I sought help from a tutor just a couple weeks in to the semester.  He made this course a hundred times easier than it would have been without his help.  I had to go for an hour every week, which became very time consuming, but he made sure that I understood all of the information that I was taught in class that week.  If I hadn’t put this class off until the last minute, I probably would have had more friends struggling with me than I did.  If that was the case, I would have made a study group instead of reaching out to the tutor.  Study groups can help you review the information, while also seeing different views about the same information.  It is easier to remember topics when you talk about them out loud and have discussions about them.  Being able to teach the information to someone else is also a great way to get it to stick in your memory.

My final study tip is to take frequent breaks while studying for a big test, and be sure to get a full night sleep the night before.  For exams that cover multiple chapters, I try to take a break after every chapter.  This give the information you just reviewed time to sink in and make connections in your brain.  It also gives you time to relax so you don’t feel as stressed and overworked, which can make you not want to continue studying.  I also try to use my breaks as motivation to keep pushing through.  Most people don’t enjoy studying, but it must be done.  At the end of the night, even if you don’t feel fully prepared, it is better to get a good night sleep than to pull an all-nighter.  While you sleep your brain is still thinking about the information and creating connections that will make it easier to recall during the test.  Many times I have gone to bed worried that I would not be able to remember anything during the test, and when I woke up the morning of the exam I was pleasantly surprised that it stuck!

Money Struggles

One of the most important skills you can learn in college is how to manage your money.  It can be tricky trying to make it last.   Everything including food, textbooks, transportation, and fun will cost you money.  I have worked summers, as well as every other break, in order to have enough money throughout the year.  It was my decision to not have a job while at school, but it did create more restraints on my spending.  I know personally I don’t have much extra money to spend, so managing my account well was necessary.  If you are struggling with managing your money, here are a few tips:

1. Create a weekly budget for yourself. This requires figuring out how much money you have and how much you use.  Make sure you are realistic with these numbers.  Once you know how much money you are spending on unnecessary items, it will feel much harder to hand over the cash or card.  This will help you spend your money only on important items, but you have to make sure you actually stick to that budget!
2. Eat most of your meals on campus. You pay for a meal plan already anyways, you might as well use it!  Trust me, I know how tempting it can be when you see your friends and roommates come home with all sorts of different types of food that are not served on campus, but don’t stretch your budget if you don’t have the money for it.  My roommates this year especially love to eat off campus- it’s our senior year, who isn’t sick of campus food yet?  But I know I can’t afford to eat off campus more than twice a month, so many times I miss out.  It is hard to find the bright side at the time, but your bank account will be better off in the long run. 
3. If you have leftover money at the end of the week, put it away in an emergency fund for another week when you might need a little more money. Just because you have a weekly budget does not mean you need to spend it all each week.  For example, I have three formals a year for my sorority and about a month before each formal I make sure I have enough money on hand to buy a new dress.  However, if I have spent too much money recently I know that my budget won’t allow for it.  In that case I try to borrow a friend’s dress for the occasion.
4. Look for deals on books, food, entertainment, etc. Books are one of my biggest expenses, but I manage to lower the cost by renting them or buying them used.  Food is another large expense.  I have found it to be more affordable if you buy things in bulk, as long as they don’t expire quickly.  You should also look to see if stores around you offer a loyalty program.  Loyalty cards can surprisingly save you a good amount of money.   Whether they are student discounts or just in-store deals, they will save you money in the long run.
5. Find a way to minimize transportation costs. Instead of driving to class you should look into other options, such as public transportation.  If your school doesn’t supply it for free, chances are there is a discount for students.  You could also find a friend who has a similar class schedule to you and ask to carpool.  This would also be environmentally helpful!  If you are close enough, the best option would be to take a bike or to walk.  This will cost you no money and will be good daily exercise!
6. Get a part-time job on or off campus if your schedule allows for it. School is your first priority, so before even applying to jobs make sure you can handle the workload.  This will bring in some extra income giving you a little flexibility with your spending.  It would be a good idea to only permit yourself to spend 50% of each paycheck you receive, while saving the other 50% for an emergency or later down the road in your life.  Looking back, I wish I had done this so I could have put the 50% I saved each paycheck towards an apartment after graduation.

Once you learn how to manage the minimal amount of money you have while in school, then you will have a much easier time budgeting once you have an actual salary.  Managing your money is life long task and the earlier you learn, the easier it will be. 

Avoiding The Freshman 15

The summer before entering college all of my friends and coworkers jokingly told me I was about to gain the freshman 15, but they ended up fueling a fear I already had.  I have always been very active and in shape, so as long as I kept to my routine I knew I would be able to keep it off.  However, the fear of gaining weight came with the fear of the unknown… not knowing when, or if at all, I would be able to fit in time for the gym with all the new adjustments of beginning college.  The three most important aspects of keeping off the freshman 15 are to eat healthy, exercise often, and get plenty of sleep each night.

The first step to eating healthy on a college campus is to figure out which dining halls offer healthy options, and which don’t.  Make time for breakfast every morning- it is the most important meal of the day, providing fuel for you to get your day started.  If possible, grab fruit to eat as a snack in between classes.  Try to save the fried foods for one meal a week, and only allow yourself to binge on sweets twice a week.  Make sure to go easy on the dressings, they can add a lot of unnecessary calories and fat.  Also, alcohol can add an abundant amount of calories to your diet and if your caloric intake is not used to this, it can cause you to gain weight rather quickly.  Another downside of drinking is the common habit of drunk eating later in the night.  All of these calories can add up quickly and surprise you at the end of the year.

Once you figure out how to manage you meals, then you need to learn how to fit in time to exercise.  The best way to make sure you actually have time in your day is to write out a daily schedule and plan a specific time to go to the gym.  Another way to ensure that you actually follow through with your gym schedule is to get a gym buddy to help motivate each other.  I would also suggest signing up for gym classes that are offered through your school.  They are a fun, cheap way to add exercise into your day!  For the days you truly don’t have time to hit the gym, then find ways during your daily activities to get you work out in, such as taking the stairs, taking the long way home, or walking to class instead of driving.

The final aspect of avoiding the freshman 15, is to get enough sleep each night, or at least most nights.  It is easy to let sleep fall through the cracks while focusing on school work and making friends, but it is necessary in order to stay healthy.  It isn’t a given that every freshman will gain the weight.  In order to avoid the freshman 15 you just need to eat healthy, hit the gym, and get plenty of sleep.  Live a balanced life style and you will remain slim and healthy!