I’ve recently read an article called 10 Tips for College and University Students, and although its target audience is pretty obvious from the title, I found most advices applicable to everyone, and think it’s worth a few minutes of your time.
The article inspired me to summarize some of my own thoughts around its advices, and you will find them in this post.
Get Organized
This is one of the most important tips ever given. I constantly remind myself about it, and you probably noticed that I value the idea of being organized so much that I suggest getting organized right at the top of every page of this website, under the blog title.
I still remember my student years, and being organized wasn’t really on my list of priorities. I now understand though that getting organized is an inevitable step towards successful graduation. Time management, organizing your study room, effective filing of all the useful information and keeping track of all the lectures and exams to attend are only a few of the ways to get your life organized.
In a way, we never stop learning, and because of this all the challenges stay the same throughout our lives. The same skills will be useful when you start your first full-time job, and the very same ones will be handy to have even when you decide to freelance or start your own business one day.
So, definitely, get organized as early as possible – it will make your life much easier.
Debt free
Stay out of debt if you can. It is so much easier said than done, isn’t it really?! Staying debt free should definitely be up high in your priorities, especially in your student years, however there will be times when borrowing money (most usually through credit cards) will be inevitable.
My advice here is to always stay financially sane. Spend only as much as you can without affecting other areas of your life and study. Don’t be paranoid about tracking all your expenses, but do your basic accounting now and then just to confirm your financial situation and to make sure you fully understand where you spend most.
Be careful with pieces of luxury, and assess just how useful a particular item will be before you buy it. Asking yourself questions and conducting a research before spending money on anything is generally a very good approach.
Motivation
Another very important part of your life: don’t forget to enjoy it! I’ve said it a few times before: find joy in everything you do, and most of your challenges will become much easier to overcome.
If you have trouble finding motivation to study, find the courage to remind yourself that you’re going to do it for yourself. If there’s any obstacle which deprives a creative process like study of the motivation it needs, it is the lack of understanding that you study things and gain knowledge for yourself and not for someone else.
After all, it’s not about your high marks or passed exams (although they’re usually a rather important part of your overall success as a student). I never chased high marks, instead I found why each subject interested me, and sought the very reasons why a particular skill or a piece of knowledge would be crucial to my future success.
If you’re a student, perhaps you’ll find something else from the 10 tips for college students to resonate with your point of view even more.