Hello Falcons! As the new semester begins, it’s time for a fresh start! With new classes and different classmates, you get an opportunity to reset your studying habits and skills. It may be hard to know exactly how to reset your habits for success however, so as the GH Falcon’s Advice-Giver-in-Chief, I’m here to help you establish a clear structure that will help set you up for success for the new semester!
Staying awake is a key component in the success of being up and ready for school. One of the toughest things to conquer when in school is just keeping your eyes open and staying focused. Luckily for you, Felicity Falcon has multiple ways to help you overcome this challenge. Firstly, getting enough sleep. Now, I know that a lot of students have a tendency to go to bed late because of homework, hanging out with friends or even just relaxing by their bed on their phone.
The truth is, going to bed late is what drains your battery the next day, and getting enough sleep is the most impactful and easy way to ensure readiness in the morning. Showers are another major way to help stay awake, as they refresh and wake you up. However, if you do not have enough time to shower in the morning, gum and ice water are the way to go. Ice water refreshes the body and wakes it up, while gum maintains the body’s awakeness.
Learning time management is paramount to having success as a student. With having to balance a multitude of classes, sports, clubs, extracurricular activities and jobs, being able to sufficiently manage each activity while also leaving time to be able to rest will guarantee success in high school. Creating a clear schedule with all of your assignments and activities that are broken down and explicitly listed, when they should be completed and the order of which the assignment/activities will be completed will help you have a clear vision of how to approach a full schedule. Aside from having a clear schedule that you follow, having time for rest and leisure will allow you to perform better in and outside of school. After finishing everything that’s scheduled, take time to productively rest by doing things such as spending time with friends and family, indulging in hobbies that you enjoy or exercising will allow you to find balance within school and your life, which will therefore help you perform better in school.
Dressing in hoodies or sweatpants is comfortable and is usually a top pick for an outfit of a highschool student. However, this outfit prepares you to be relaxed, tired, to go home and most of all, to go to bed. Dressing in jeans, sweaters, and other nicer clothes prepares you for the day, not to be uncomfortable, but gets your body prepared to be with groups of people and gives one a more active mindset. What you wear corresponds with the mind so if you look good it usually helps you feel good too. This mindset and approach when going to school is beneficial in staying engaged in school. One more thing, this is a tip from myself, your advice giver, knowing how to dress nicer and making sure sweatpants are a habit, is good when you prepare yourself for getting a job and going off to college.
While staying engaged in class is vital to competently learning, doing so could be difficult, as students go through multiple classes a day, being tasked with different assignments, meetings, assessments and projects. However, finding classmates who you can study and learn with can help massively, as you can work with each other as a way to keep each other accountable within classes. Also, by establishing the reason why you’re taking a class, as well as looking for interesting points within the content, you can create a clear motive behind taking the class such as being able to learn something interesting or passing the class to graduate, which will make you more likely to learn eagerly.
There is a lot of information above to help you overcome a lack of motivation. To actually conquer this issue, one has to keep themselves accountable. Making sure that you do the following steps is something that can be difficult but it is healthy for you. Setting goals for yourself is an opportunity to keep yourself accountable because it gives more of a push and strives towards a goal. With this engaging mindset to help oneself stay accountable, rewarding yourself after you meet the goals is another opportunity to be successful.
As the second semester starts, it’s the perfect fresh start to revamp your study and work habits, as well as your time management skills. From starting the day off with a cold shower to implementing a clear schedule to structure your day, dressing yourself up to finding friends who will keep you accountable, these techniques will ensure that you have an optimal semester filled with learning, connection and growth.
