5 Things You Have to Quit This Upcoming Semester

Love it or hate it, it's that time of year again; back to school season. As summer begins to close out, there are those who weep and those who can't sleep because they are so excited (me)! I hope to inspire you to have a better attitude about back to school season and to make school your victim, instead of it being the other way around.

1. Having your priorities out of whack

The seconds, minutes and hours are all around us. The problem is that we fail to realize this, as we choose to do meaningless and non school related activities before our main tasks and assignments. I would recommend for example, that you do not allow yourself to indulge in Netflix, social media or anything else, until you have taken care of what you were supposed to. A great way to actually put this in to practice (as per mentioned in a past article), is to make yourself an itinerary the night before, in which you figure out when you will do what, and stick to that thing as if your life depended on it! You need structure, because structure and scheduling is dummy proof. All you have to do is show up, because let's face it, you got into your school and you deserve to be there, so start proving that to yourself.

2. Going to bed late by choice

"I aM So TirEd," is something I hear during almost every early morning class. Hey, you have a job and worked late, I get it, so you are off the hook. In this case, I'm talking about the people who didn't work the night before and decided to lay in bed scrolling through social media, when they could have been getting a head start on their sleep. Think about it like this; you are not going to remember what you aimlessly scrolled through the night before. All that you will remember is that you got a lousy amount of sleep because we are talking about biology here, and the body does not lie. Every moment of your morning will be a harsh reminder of your poor choices the night before as you fight to stay awake and or focus in class. What I would recommend is that you calculate what time you would have have to go to bed the night before your class in order to get between 7 and 8 hours of sleep, and make it your mission to fall asleep at that time. You're not in grade 8 anymore, so it is no longer cool or attractive that you stayed up late. In fact, there is nothing splendid about eye bags and crankiness, if you ask me.

3. Complaining

Whether it be assignments, tests, the weather, etc, complaining will not make it go away. None of these things are things we can control so stop wasting your energy on complaining. Let's face it, you make it through every school year and end up finishing what you have to finish at the end of it all, so, was there really anything worth complaining about? What is life without a dose of adversity and challenge every now and then? Don't you want to show everyone what you're made of? I thought "mama didn't raise no..." never mind, I think you get it now.

4. Doing assignments the day before

I can write an entire article about this bad habit, so I will save my fingers. Instead, I will keep it short and sweet. The professor, teacher, instructor or whoever, gives you at least a week to do each assignment or study for each test, so why not use that to your advantage? Do little sections every single day of your essay for example, and you will be amazed at how well this works. Imagine having a 1500 word paper and having 2 weeks to do it. 1500 divided by 14 is around 107, so all you would have to do is write 107 words per day! I don't know about you, but hat sounds like peanuts to me. This all ties into the idea of creating an itinerary if you didn't already catch on, because you can add stuff to your "to do list," such as "write the intro of my paper," or "find 3 sources to cite" for example.

5. Blaming our "flawed" school system

People claim that it is not a system for individuals and that it does not promote creativity, as it values rule oriented methods when doing assignments. There are so many valid complaints about the system that I have heard, so yeah, I am with you! Like I said before though, complaining about it will not change it! So, look for some positives such as the fact that it teaches you valuable skills such as how to read, write, think, work with others and make arguments. Those skills are the fundamental building blocks of any brilliant mind that has ever existed. So next time a professor gives you an essay to write, don't complain. Instead, be excited that you get to show them your skill set and what you bring to the table. Assignments are like your big performance, in which you get to show them how you are different, catch their attention and show them that no one does it like you. After all, that is great practice for the real world, when we aim to stand out and land that big job one day.