As you embark upon another online semester, follow these tips that we gathered from our team and our Ambassador community to effectively study for and manage your virtual classes.
- Collaborate with friends and other students in your class as much as possible. Schedule a Zoom meeting to work together and hold each other accountable. You’ll end up actually enjoying studying.
- Attend professors’ office hours to clarify material and to get to know them better. Office hours might actually be less crowded online, so you’ll have the chance to familiarize yourself with your professors and eventually ask for letters of recommendation, help with graduate school applications, and mentorship. If you’re nervous, just try attending for a few minutes to introduce yourself and get to know the professor.
- Communicate with your professors. Ask questions, attend office hours, and email them – even just to send along interesting articles and keep in touch. They’ll really appreciate it!
- Set a schedule, similar to a workday schedule, for yourself. Maybe it’s 9am to 5pm, or fewer hours, but make an effort to start and stop working at scheduled times each day.
- Make time for other hobbies and activities after you’re done working for the day. Have something to look forward to – like a walk outside, an art project, or a relaxing bath – once you close that laptop!
- Take breaks throughout the work day to stretch, get outside, and eat a snack. Come back to work feeling refreshed and ready to tackle more assignments!
- Not looking forward to a project or assignment? Start small and break it down into micro-tasks. Tackle each little task and you’ll be through the intimidating project in no time!
- Complete any and all tasks that can be done in under 20 minutes as soon as you receive them. For bigger projects, break them up and schedule each part of the project into your week.
More Tips From Our Ambassadors
- Dannia (@collegelifeblogging): “Study somewhere that isn’t your bedroom if possible! Go to the library, an outside coffee shop seating area, or empty classrooms on campus.”
- Victoria (@victoriashealthdiaries): “Write down all your assignments ahead of time! It’s even easier to forget assignments when you’re not physically going to class, so having everything written down makes sure you’re doing what you need to do. Also, it gives you the satisfying feeling of crossing things off a list once you finish them.”
- Kayla (@_kaylareads): “Make sure to attend all of the live lectures you can! It helped me stay on schedule and stay on track this semester!”
