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Since us high school kids are limited by our parents on how much time we spend on fun vs. school, when you get to college, particularly the ivies (UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, Brown - NOT HYP, i'd never survive), are there any tips for balancing your life so you don't end up having a breakdown and committing suicide, or getting kicked out for poor performance? or do you pretty much never go out?

By Jon (Jon) on Monday, May 17, 2004 - 12:28 am: Edit

you can definitely have time to have fun - this from someone who goes to berkeley, at least, for what its worth. a tip is to agressively pursue a routine in managing your time well (easier said than done, and something i don't do).

even write down times during the day you will study, set off a block of time for study hours every day. if you have free time in between class, instead of going back to the dorms, go to the library and study (i wish i knew how to do this). if you wait until its time to cram for exams, everything will seem new to you and you will have to work very hard to pull high grades.

if you go to class and take notes, then come home and do the reading and review your notes the day you take them, things will stick in your mind better and you will only have to do a light review for exams, making life much easier and less stressful. think about it, if you study one day's notes it will probably take like half an hour to an hour per class...thats only one to two hours of studying per day with an average workload. you'll have your nights free to go out, party (just be weary of the mornings after), hang out, or if you want to be ahead of the pack, study more.

p.s. columbia's workload is probably harder than HYP's, IMO.

-jon

By Punchline05 (Punchline05) on Monday, May 17, 2004 - 03:36 pm: Edit

One to two hours, plus the average workload...how big is an average workload...? i would assume hours, 4 maybe? i don't know, i'm only in high school!
IMO? um...what?
How much sleep do you berkeley kids get?

By Mattman (Mattman) on Monday, May 17, 2004 - 10:41 pm: Edit

Read carefully:
"thats only one to two hours of studying per day with an average workload."

That means on a typical days' worth of classes (some people have lots of classes on a single day and none on others).

By Frescoelmo (Frescoelmo) on Monday, May 17, 2004 - 11:12 pm: Edit

IMO means in my opinion...

By Ariesathena (Ariesathena) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 12:14 am: Edit

To answer the question: plan your studying time and your fun time. When you have study time, turn off the IM, turn off the cell, and work. When you've finished a set amount of work, have fun.

Sounds easy, but takes some getting used to. IMO, best way to balance work and fun. It's hard to completely buckle down and get through work, but it goes much faster and then you can really enjoy yourself afterwards.

By Jon (Jon) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 01:57 am: Edit

dont ask me about sleep right now, its finals week...

By Abz1986 (Abz1986) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 07:00 pm: Edit

HYP isn't necessarily harder than the other colleges you listed

By Bluestar86 (Bluestar86) on Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 01:25 am: Edit

im willing to bet harvard is much more manageable than columbia... harvard is known for grade inflation while columbia is known for very very very intense academics.

By Anthony (Anthony) on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - 06:44 am: Edit

"(UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, Brown - NOT HYP, i'd never survive)"

Wrong. HYP are the schools where you could do the least amount of work for the highest grades. As others have said, workloads and Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn would be much higher.

By Ariesathena (Ariesathena) on Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - 05:37 pm: Edit

The tips that I can offer for balancing study and fun are (no particular order) as follows:

*go to every class. At most schools, just by going to class, being alert, and taking notes, you'll manage to scrape by (note this does not apply to tough schools and tough majors)

*be very, very organized. Much more important than in high school. Have a whiteboard will all assignments and due dates so you can see what work you need to get done. Keep your notes organized. Have a binder with all of the syllabi in it.

*plan your fun time. I know a chemical engineer who was drunk by about 7 pm every night - but he graduated at the top of his class. He would wake up, do work, go to class, work in between class, basically work his butt off until he was done. Then he would get drunk. Repeat process next day.

*understand that you can't get everything done the way you could in high school - so prioritize. For example, plan on doing your history reading and math homework before you see friends for the night. Don't think that you'll study until everything is done - most likely, you'll start talking on the phone, IMing people, be on CC, whatever - and get nothing done. Just pick a few things to do before you go out or socialize and do them.

*Turn off IM. Unplug the internet cord. You laugh, but I used to take my roommate's internet cord when she had a test. Think of IM, email, phone, etc as part of your fun time - and don't mix that with studying.

*Go to every review session that you can. It'll save you hours of study time.

Hope that helps.

By Sin_87 (Sin_87) on Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 05:28 am: Edit

yes i agree with the internet thing. i nv study in my room when i really need to get something done because it's impossible to work when u have the distraction of the computer in front of you. of course it's different for writing papers and so on but you get the point.

i think as long as you manage your time well it'll be ok. like say you want to watch this tv show or something then plan to do work both before and after that, and then try not to be distracted while studying. once your in front of the tv it's very easy to lie there the whole night and not get anything done

my $0.02