In this lovely modern age a lot of my studying is done online. I have to use Blackboard for several of my courses, watch missed lectures on a professor’s website and, of course, use Wikipedia to do “research” for papers.

Recently I noticed that when I sit down at the computer to do those things I keep finding myself on Twitter, Facebook, Lifehacker or CNN.

I briefly toyed with the idea of banning those sites on my computer (they make software for it, I’m sure) and more old-fashioned methods, like snapping myself with a rubberband when I visited them.

My new solution is simple, practical and totally easy to implement.

1. Turn off the toolbars that distract – especially Delicious and the built-in Bookmarks bar for your browser. If you don’t have a quick link to Twitter you have to do more than click a button to visit.
2. Google search is often not your friend. It’s so easy to run off to lose time by using it. So, type in the box, all in caps “STAY FOCUSED ON (COURSE NAME)”
3. Open a text file and save it as “GetBacktoStudying.txt” – whenever you want to check something on Google or have an idea un-related to your current course type it in there and save it.

None of these things actually stop you from “being bad” – but they all make you pause a few seconds longer and have actually made a huge difference in how focused I am. The third one has been especially helpful, as it’s saved me from doing pointless research – what was so pressing while I was studying cell biology is of no interest several hours later when I could be going out for a bike ride instead.

* To turn off toolbars in FireFox just go to View > Toolbars and click the name of the one  you want to turn off. Easy as pie.

Image Credit: CarrotCreative / CC BY 2.0

It’s the first day back on campus, or for some of you your first day of college. Welcome to school everyone.

1. Talk to strangers. Introduce yourself to whomever you meet and ask them questions. Try not to talk for more than 30 seconds at a time and ask new people about themselves. This is the core of being charming, and will make people remember you, because you made them feel important, instead of being that jerk who talked about themselves for 10 minutes.
2. Don’t be afraid of your professors. Just go to their office hours and introduce yourself, let them know you stopped by just to be sure you could find their office when you need it. DO IT THIS WEEK.
3. Know your college’s add/drop dates, and if you don’t feel good about a professor DROP YOUR CLASS before the last add/drop date. It sucks to get a W on your transcripts just because you didn’t know the dates. Iffy on one of them? Check RateMyProfessor.com (or something similar) and see if the reviews match that feeling you’re getting.

For the first two and a half years of college I averaged 35 hours per week at work, in my office, running a business, while taking 12-14 credit hours at a time. Last semester I learned that combining that workload with upper-division courses is a recipe for burn-out and depression. In the end, I had to withdraw from two of my four classes at the last minute, and re-arrange my plans for the next two years to accommodate falling behind.

That was the bad news. The good news is that I have learned from my mistakes, and now you can as well. I followed advice from family, friends and the webernets in setting up this semester’s course and workload.

How’d I do it? By following these rules:

1. Don’t overload your schedule. Taking 12 credits to maintain loans or scholarships? Fine, do it. But only two get to be difficult courses. My tough classes are Calculus 251 and Physics 112 (and lab), both heavy on the logic and working out problems and doing tons of practice.
2. Balance out the hard stuff with something fun! An online religions course (counts as Upper Division Literature for my major req) and an UD UNI course to mentor fellow students are fun for me. These both require blocks of dedicated time, but the online one can be squeezed in with some flexibility each week, and they’re both really interesting, so doing the homework is a pleasure.
3. Create a work schedule and post it on your office door. Your co-workers will not remember your schedule, so it’s your job to make it easy for them to know when you’ll be there. This will make it easier for important meetings and events to be scheduled, and for others to plan when they want to talk to you about various projects.
4. Create your own schedule, and set hard deadlines for arrival and departure. This is meant more for work, because it’s so easy to stay “just one more minute” and end up working two hours into your study time. By planning your day (or even the whole week) ahead of time, you tend to work more efficiently. Quite simply, knowing you need to be out the door at 4:30 to review for next week’s exam ensures you spend less time chit-chatting by the water cooler and more time plowing through your work.
5. Plan to relax! It is very, very, VERY easy to spend the entire week in a work-school-homework-sleep grind. It’s even easier to lose your Saturday to “making up” time at work, squeezing in required family events and housecleaning. Give yourself at least two hours each week, entirely to yourself, to do something that is an enjoyable, non-stressful event. Read a book, go bike riding, play Halo or go out to the theater and see a movie. But do something for yourself.

The majority of resources online are aimed at full-time students, FT students with part time jobs, or part-time students with full-time jobs. Other than myself, I haven’t yet found a resource for those who do both work & school full-time, or even for student’s who’s part-time job is a real responisiblity with limited flexibility.

So, for part-time students, some more tips can be found here “Hacks for Part-Time Students” and on Helium’s Tips for Success As a Part-Time Student.