The Burns Effect: College Tips

How to Organize Your College Courses

Time management and organization are two of the most important skills that you can have in college. Not only will they prepare you for your ultimate, full-time position, but they will also allow your time in college to go by smoothly with as less stress possible. I have touched on how I use Trello to stay organized; the Pomodoro technique is also something that I swear by. Now, I want to talk to all of you future (and current) college students about how to maximize your college schedule to stay on track for graduation and to keep your stress levels down.
There are many factors to consider when it comes to choosing college classes. It is important to know which classes are required and which ones are electives. You should also know whether you plan to study abroad (or do a program similar to National Student Exchange) during your college tenure. Another important factor is your class standing - are you considered a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior? Lastly, think about what your preferences are as far as morning, afternoon, or evening courses.

1. Are you a morning person? Night owl?

In high school, I had no choice but to get to school at 8 a.m. every weekday. This forced me to get used to the morning time; I had to learn how to be productive at such an early time. My first semester in college, I decided to take a lot of morning courses. (Because why not? I'm was used to them!) That was the worse mistake of my life. There is definitely a difference between morning classes in high school and morning college classes. I learned from my mistakes and took late morning courses this past spring semester.
Knowing whether you prefer morning classes or night classes will require complete honesty from yourself. If you were forced into morning classes in high school, yet secretly (or maybe not so secretly) hated it, do not trick yourself into doing the same in college. While you will not always be able to choose later classes, I would not purposefully select AM ones. The same goes for later courses. I strongly dislike any classes after 3 p.m. (How does this work, you ask, if I also hate morning courses? Great question - I plan, plan, plan.) Because of this, I try to select late-morning to late-afternoon courses.

2. What is your class standing [by credits]?

The more credits you have, the higher your class standing. Use this to your benefit! As soon as you are able to register for classes, you want to jump online and do so, so that you do not miss out on a class because it becomes full. I had the privilege of being assigned the very first day of registration (for seniors), even though I was a freshman. This was because of my scholarship, which I am grateful for!
In this step, you want to make a contingency schedule and select additional courses that you wouldn't mind taking if you do not get your first choices. The more credits you have, the quicker you get to choose your classes. This sucks for the younger classes because classes are typically capped at a certain number. At Iowa State, psychology classes fill up extremely fast, so I have a lot of friends who had to choose an alternate.

3. Schedule in meal breaks

You may be wondering why meal time is something you have to schedule. I'll tell you why: you will get sick. If you schedule classes back-to-back and do not appropriately plan to eat, you will not be able to focus in class because you're so hungry. This is the absolute worst feeling! So make sure to take the time to schedule time between courses to grab some lunch (or dinner, if you have later classes). I never regret doing this. If you must, grab food for lunch the night before or get up early to stop by a convenience store on campus!

4. Check Ratemyprofessor

Or, talk to other students in your college that may have taken the class before. It's important to figure out the history of a professor. While Ratemyprofessor is not the end-all-be-all, it is a great indicator for how you will like or do in a course. If you find out a professor typically has a negative rating and you would prefer not to risk it, look for other course sections and times.

5. Know what's required and what's optional

Certain courses for certain majors are not elective; you have to take them. It's important from the get-go to know when you plan to take these. Required courses are traditionally prerequisites to one another; for example, you have to take a math before an economics or accounting course, or an English class before a creative writing course. It all depends on your college's requirements. Once you plan when you will take the required courses, you will be able to start choosing electives.

6. Choose days that work best for you

Would you prefer Monday, Wednesday, and Friday courses? Or Tuesday and Thursday? It's pretty great when you can take a couple of days off, but just know that this isn't frequent. Also, note that professors will sometimes cancel classes on Fridays, so some MWF courses will turn into MW courses.