How to Get the Most of Your Semester

By Sally Raskoff

Are you getting ready for a new semester or has one already started? In either case, here are some suggestions to have an enjoyable and productive semester.

1.      Manage your time well. Make sure you have enough time to do the work for your classes. You’ll need enough time to do the work for your class: reading, thinking, reflecting, writing, editing. Don’t take overload your schedule! See this Everyday Sociology post on time management for more discussion.

2.      Connect the dots. Read and investigate the ideas you encounter. Follow up on interesting facts and studies. Notice how material connects to life events and material from other courses. Keep reading things like this blog and other sources that provide not only information about what’s happening in the world (newspapers?!) but may offer a sociological perspective.

3.      Communicate and build your social networks. Go talk to your professor (and TAs) about the class and/or general information. Form as many study groups as you can. In person, virtual, or both. The other people in your classes can (and should) become part of your personal and professional network. Read more about the power of acquaintances here.

4.      Ask for support before you need it. Enlist family and friends (and employers if possible) to support your educational needs. At the beginning of the semester, put all due dates and reading schedules – including project or research papers– on your calendar so that you can see how the semester will relate to events in your personal and work lives. Try to arrange for some help with your life responsibilities during times when your educational responsibilities will heavier than usual. Remind your friends and family that semesters are short and that if you can focus on getting your work done, after the semester is over, you won’t have to take the class again and you can then do the same for them.

5.      Be honest in your educational activities. Make sure you really are learning what you’relearning. Deny the urge to take short cuts or cheat –this would shortchange you in your learning process and it wouldn’t pay off in the long run. Would you want to see a doctor who didn’t really learn what was supposed to be learned in a medical class? Your sociology classes prepare you to use your critical thinking skills to identify and solve social problems. If you don’t take the learning seriously, you won’t be developing those skills and be able to use them in future classes, professions, and community engagement. See this Everyday Sociology post for more on cheating, and this one on tests.

6.      Plan for the future but participate in and stay focused on the present. Keep an eye on where you are in your educational process. Be sure to apply for scholarships, grants, grad school before the deadlines approach but be vigilant about reading the materials given (and those you find), doing the work on assignments and test preparation, and reflecting on what you are learning this day, this week, in this section of your class.

What other words of advice and counsel can you add to this list? By the way, do you see any connections to sociological ideas in this list? What would C. Wright Mills say about number two, for instance? What might Emile Durkheim say about number four?