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| Here I am, procrastinating and doing HW |
Since I am a person that absolutely LOVES school, I decided to sift through all my lists of school supplies that I have literally made every July and August since the summer before 9th grade. I also made a class schedule every year to organize my binders, and since starting college, this schedule has only gotten more detailed.
In high school I would combine binders based on class schedule: first and second period went in one binder or first, second and third went into binder. Math and Science binders had their own separate binders and some classes only require notebooks. And for our high school, freshmen had to have a Glacier High School planner specifically designed to organize by classes/subject ie: math, science, English, electives etc. Every now and then, some of our teachers would check our planners and part of the grade in that class depended on if you were actually using that planner.
Also my parents made me keep a planner in high school. PLANNERS ARE A MUST!!
I soon became addicted to staying organized and used to joke that I used read my planner more than I read the bible. I was entirely dependent on it. For some reason, I could not understand why I was unable remember my homework to save my life, but later- in March 2015, I learned that it was because my of my epilepsy.
Anyways, here is an organized list and tips that should help you adjust to your first semester of college and set you up for the right path!
Plenty of Pens
I buy my pens at the Dollar Store, for $1 I can buy 10 pens in one package. You have the options of buying red, black and blue pens, I buy between 2-4 packages at a time. They may be cheap but they last a remarkably long time. One pen can last me nearly til the end of the semester. If you lose one, you at least still have a bunch more at your disposal. It is so much easier to use pens to write notes for college. 1) You can kinda write faster. 2) They don’t rub away and disapear by the end of the semester so you can still read them.
Colored Pens. These I buy at Target or Walmart. They are affordable and I sometimes use them when I review my notes to annotate or separate really important details, formulas and things I really know will be on the test.
Highlighters. Again, I get these at Target or Walmart- I LOVE Target, you get to stack savings with the Redcard, Cartwheel, clearance and coupons on items.
I will often times highlight the class homework/projects that I need to do THAT night for the next day. Example: If I have a MWF class, I will write it down in the Tuesday and Thursday sections and highlight the classes so that I can see that they’re separated. I usually write my homework assignments without spacing classes with a line between, so I highlight the course with separate colors.
(HINT, if you haven’t already used this: colleges use MWF for obviously Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But what I didn’t learn until my first semester was that TR, meant Tuesday and Thursday.)
Sticky Notes - Sometimes I write a ton in the block of my planner for that specific day, things to do at home, projects deadlines, project tasks that need to be done by the end of this week or during that weekend… You get the picture. When I have used up that block, I sometimes have to write extra notes and separate by class to remind me in a less specific way of the things I really need to work on that night...Sometimes I even use notecards do this.
NOTEBOOKS! Depending on the course, I use one subject notebooks, sometimes I use multi-subject notebooks for my Math and Science basics; other times I use subject tabs in one binder for one course and would use loose leaf papers and separate by topic in that course .
For some of my English and Literature courses, the instructor separated the course in periods of time and Shakespeare plays. And the tests were separated by the time periods. So I would separate with subject tabbies per time period. Or in Math and Science courses, I would separate with sticky tabs.
BINDERS! Once you have a good collection of binders, (small, medium and large) you can usually keep them in good condition for a good amount of time. I have had some of my binders since freshman year in college- and once I am done taking my year off from school because of my diagnosis- I will have Junior standing and my binders will have lasted three years! You can organize your binders anyway you like.
I stash math and science core classes in their one binder/notebook…. SIDE NOTE: My first semester at MSU, I had to take M145Q (Math for the Liberal Arts) it was a small survey course of various math subjects. English, and other majors in the College of Letters and Science had to take this survey course for our math core. We dipped our toes into everything from Algebra 2 to a snippet of Stats and Calculus. Later, at the community college, someone asked the entire class if anyone had taken that course.
I piped up and explained roughly what you would cover, and when I explained that there was a small dose of Calculus, I got pretty excited and immediately the person shut down and turned away because I was so excited about the small, fun dose of Calculus that was covered in that class. …Apparently it was something they had never covered in high school. That was the nerdiest moment that I have experienced that someone actually snubbed me for. BACK TO THE TIPS…
I tend to combine some courses if they are on the same day of the week and IF I know the instructor won’t have many notes to cover in the class. You can just get a feel of that during the week-ish of the semester.
Pencil Bags
I keep all my pens, pencils and highlighters in one bag IN MY BACKPACK/tote. It is just so much easier to keep in the backpack you use for all your classes instead of fishing through your bag or binders to see if you hadn’t stolen your writing utensils from yourself. I have done that many times before.
If I have missed anything in this list feel free to leave a tip in the comment box or email me at katchampion@gmail.com
Now go enjoy your 20s and your college years!
~The Tiny Twenty-Something
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