HOW I STAY ORGANISED: UNIVERSITY EDITION! // + My first year at Uni & general advice

I’m writing this after having been back at school for literally only one week and already I hate myself, the school and everyone on the planet because school is the worst and I am tired. But, I said ai would come back after a year of Uni and share my “wisdom” so here I am. I’m sorry in advance.

I have written a How I Stay Organised post before which you can read here, and I have also written about my first Uni impressions here if you’re interested.

Where Am I At Now? Q & A, I guess. 

↣ I started my first semester of my second year of Uni last week, I’ll officially be finished with school for the year around mid-October.

↣ I’m stressed and very tired

↣ Physically I’m in Australia, mentally I’m in Hell.

↣ I’m a full-time student (I’m taking 3 classes), and I work casually throughout the week but have a permanent shift on Fridays.

↣ I’m doing a Bachelor of Arts, and I’m double-majoring in Literature and Screen Studies (doing a double major is compulsory for this degree at my school. It’s a lot.)

MY FIRST YEAR UNI IMPRESSIONS

↣ This one is pretty obvious if you know me but, I hated most of my classes. First-year classes are pretty much all compulsory. If you don’t do them you don’t get your degree. They were boring and I barely passed some of them because there’s a reason I’m not majoring in those subjects.

↣ I didn’t like some of my professors. The catch? It’s a small school so I’m going to have to work with some of them multiple times and I’m literally dreading school because of this.

↣ There are some perks to Uni, most of them are the community events and the discount food vouchers.

↣ 4 hours of public transport, 3x (sometimes more) a week gets very tiring very quickly

↣ Socialising is hard and makes me very uncomfortable. However, I do have a friend now so that’s nice!

↣ Most, if not all of my reading got done while I was on the bus and on that note, the majority of the books I read, only got read because I was listening to them via audiobook.

↣ In some classes, participation is compulsory and goes towards a mark which is THE WORST when you get anxious easily and also when you’re being mainly marked for group discussion and you’re deaf. Basically, it was the worst and I had to put in almost double the work of the other students, in a class I didn’t even want to take all because the school didn’t want to have to accommodate for the student with the disability. Fun.

HOW I STAY ORGANISED

↦ I mean, I kind of want to say that I didn’t but I passed all my classes so clearly I was doing something right.

SCHOOL

⇉ I consistently check my school email. It can’t be helped if you’re already halfway to school and then your lecturer lets you know that class has been cancelled. But, if you never check that’s on you. Also, checking your email is a really good habit to get into.

⇉ Sleep – you have no idea how important it is until you haven’t had any in 24 hours and you’re still trying to write your essay.

⇉ Actually, attend class – it gives a sense of accountability, you’re able to ask questions face-to-face, it makes it all seem more “real” and gets me so much more excited to finish my degree and never come back. Also, if you actually turn up you can talk to other people taking the class and maybe make a friend or at least find someone to proofread your essays.

⇉ Have a schedule – attending class and having a set blogging schedule really helps me. I also try to give myself deadlines in my mind for reading because otherwise I know I’ll just sleep on the bus and never get anything done. It’s a mind game.

⇉ I write everything in a Google calendar – I have different colours for everything but, if it’s about my blog, school, work, books or anything social (ha) it will go on the calendar. It just makes my life easier to have everything in one place.

BLOGGING

⇉ If you can’t get reviews up then forget about them until you actually have the time to write them. I have never once been proud of a rushed blog post or review so just wait until you actually have the time to write and then go nuts!

⇉ Only do what you have time for – during the school term I only write my own posts because I don’t have time to blog hop. I hardly even comment on my friends’ posts which sucks but I would rather get my school work done and then blog if I have the time to. Not vice versa.

⇉ If blogging is stressing you out and you’re not posting as much as you’d like to be either take a break (I highly advise doing this) or just write a bunch of “simple” blog posts like tags or memes (T5W etc.) and schedule them ahead of time.

⇉ I schedule the majority of my blog posts ahead of time. For example, I changed my schedule from posting 3 times a week to 2, and so I have already written all the posts I need to for next week. It makes life a lot easier, blogging is something I love doing so having it be almost stress-free during school is a big help!

⇉ I write my blog posts on weekends. I only have one day off a week and then I have weekends. I generally, use my week-day off to study, bake or sleep, so weekends are reserved for extra reading, studying and writing blog posts. I find that this works best for me, but if anyone else has any other advice for fitting in writing blog posts please let me know in the comments!

⇉ I also heavily outline my blog posts advance when I schedule them which makes it MUCH easier for me when I eventually go to write the posts!

READING

⇉ I have found that during school I really don’t read a whole lot and that I need stress-relief in any form I can get it. Therefore, I do a lot of baking, and I’ve found that listening t audiobooks is the perfect thing to do when I’m nindless baking cookies (my current obsession). Seriously, if I’m in the right mood, I will bake for hours until I finish a book.

⇉ I mentioned this before but, aside from baking, my bus trips to and from school are really the only chance I get to read. I also try to do any reading or work for school here but if I can’t be bothered or by some lucky chance I’ve already done all of that, I will chuck on an audiobook until I get to school.

⇉ I think that most people get less reading done during the school term and I’m the same but, there are ways around this – like listening to audiobooks while you’re driving or just straight up reading on the bus.

⇉ It’s not fun carrying physical books around especially when you already have textbooks, laptop/notebook etc. so I usually just listen to an audiobook or have an ebook on my phone/Kindle. It’s a good hack when I can’t be pooped to carry around a 300-page novel.

SOCIAL LIFE

⇉ This past year I’ve actually had a social life?? It was kind of weird but I definitely recommend it.

⇉ Actually going outside and talking to a human person who is not my dog did so much for me this past semester and I’m kind of flabbergasted by it all.

⇉ You don’t have to talk to people if you don’t want to! But, go outside or even just go to the library! My favourite thing to do by myself (or with a friend) is just to go to the movies because it’s such an easy (and relatively quick) way to relax and not stress about life. 10/10 recommend

DOES SCHOOL STRESS YOU OUT TOO? HOW DO YOU STAY ORGANISED?

 HAVE