I was in college from age 18-19 and then again from 28-29. In that decade split, I learned one thing: it's what you do in the disconnected moments of the day - the ten minutes here, the fifteen minutes there - that makes all the difference. Barring that, setup a class and work schedule that give bigger chunks of time.
At the second college I attended, my roommates were always amazed at the fact that I was able to have my evenings mostly free after about 8:30 at night. Considering that I was taking four or more credit hours per semester than average, also made them wonder all the more.
The trick was that I learned how to do my work in the many little bits of downtime during the day - such as between classes, waiting in line for meals, while traveling to and from classes. I also learned that from time to time I was going to have to "sacrifice" an entire Saturday to schoolwork. Taking a job monitoring the computer lab gave me the option to read materials I had to read for classes while also working, too.
I structured my classes in such a way that instead of taking hour-long classes three times a week, I took three hour-long classes once a week. That freed up bigger chunks of time for extended work or made it easier for me to schedule my computer lab job.
Another tactic is to schedule classes so that they are very close to each other on campus. If you have a ten or fifteen minute walk between buildings, that's time you either lose or have to find clever ways to utilize. I scheduled my classes so that I was rarely more than a five minute walk from one to another.
One other tactic is to jam a lot of classes into Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, therefore having Tuesdays and Thursdays free. Since many profs have work due on Mondays and Fridays, it gives you at least a day and a half before work is due. On most Mondays, I was in class from 8:30 AM till 9PM, but that freed my other days to be a lot lighter. Since most of my work was assigned on Mondays, that gave me a light week to follow up. But I would from time to time still use up all of Monday and work until midnight if I knew I could knockout something quickly that was assigned that day. Tuesday would then come with no classes (or only one - and that was usually scheduled right after lunch or right before dinner so I'd be on campus and not waste time in travel) and plenty of large blocks of time for study and work.
With this schedule and plan, most of my time-intensive work was done by Wednesday at around 8:30 PM. This plan worked great and I was able to graduate Summa Cum Laude.
As I watched younger students work, I saw how they squandered ten minutes here and twenty minutes there in transitioning from one activity or class to another. Do that four or five times a day and you've lost a lot of time that work could have been done in. If you cannot work in those pieces of time, schedule them to be filled the way I did and let time accumulate in bigger chunks.
Slashdot Mirror
I was in college from age 18-19 and then again from 28-29. In that decade split, I learned one thing: it's what you do in the disconnected moments of the day - the ten minutes here, the fifteen minutes there - that makes all the difference. Barring that, setup a class and work schedule that give bigger chunks of time.
At the second college I attended, my roommates were always amazed at the fact that I was able to have my evenings mostly free after about 8:30 at night. Considering that I was taking four or more credit hours per semester than average, also made them wonder all the more.
The trick was that I learned how to do my work in the many little bits of downtime during the day - such as between classes, waiting in line for meals, while traveling to and from classes. I also learned that from time to time I was going to have to "sacrifice" an entire Saturday to schoolwork. Taking a job monitoring the computer lab gave me the option to read materials I had to read for classes while also working, too.
I structured my classes in such a way that instead of taking hour-long classes three times a week, I took three hour-long classes once a week. That freed up bigger chunks of time for extended work or made it easier for me to schedule my computer lab job.
Another tactic is to schedule classes so that they are very close to each other on campus. If you have a ten or fifteen minute walk between buildings, that's time you either lose or have to find clever ways to utilize. I scheduled my classes so that I was rarely more than a five minute walk from one to another.
One other tactic is to jam a lot of classes into Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, therefore having Tuesdays and Thursdays free. Since many profs have work due on Mondays and Fridays, it gives you at least a day and a half before work is due. On most Mondays, I was in class from 8:30 AM till 9PM, but that freed my other days to be a lot lighter. Since most of my work was assigned on Mondays, that gave me a light week to follow up. But I would from time to time still use up all of Monday and work until midnight if I knew I could knockout something quickly that was assigned that day. Tuesday would then come with no classes (or only one - and that was usually scheduled right after lunch or right before dinner so I'd be on campus and not waste time in travel) and plenty of large blocks of time for study and work.
With this schedule and plan, most of my time-intensive work was done by Wednesday at around 8:30 PM. This plan worked great and I was able to graduate Summa Cum Laude.
As I watched younger students work, I saw how they squandered ten minutes here and twenty minutes there in transitioning from one activity or class to another. Do that four or five times a day and you've lost a lot of time that work could have been done in. If you cannot work in those pieces of time, schedule them to be filled the way I did and let time accumulate in bigger chunks.
Blessings!