<p>i think i got to school 9 days last semester (4 were for finals and midterms). the other days i didn't get there. this is not good. but from my subjective perspective it was a significant triumph i made it to most of my finals at all. and to celebrate i rewarded myself with a month of doing absolutely nothing but pondering my own mental decay in between chunks of entertainment consumption which i readily swallowed on after the other. now my subjective standpoint could use an adjustment. i know. my commute isn't even a hard one. i have to take one bus which is always empty when it arrives, giving me free reigns to pick whatever seat i may want (i always pick the same seat). then it deposits me and a dozen other students at the entrance of my school. on a sunny day, when the skies are blue, when the walkways are dancing in reflected sunlight, when the leaves on the trees glistening, i feel like i am being beckoned into a wild cat sanctuary except the difference being that instead of wild cats the animals contained within are tamed humans, drawn to the pentagonal campus and it's many buildings in different stages of disrepair to get an education so they can progress one mile farther than their fellow uneducated man in the cold capitalistic world that lays beyond the environs of the sanctuary. </p>
<p>now tell me what you do because i could use ideas.</p>
<p>Don’t elect morning classes. Choose classes late in the afternoon or in the evening so you don’t have to get up early, or feel like you’re missing a nice day.</p>
<p>Simple solution, just force yourself to go. Have some self control. Decide that days off are not allowed, and don’t even consider skipping to be an option. If the problem is that it’s a beautiful day outside and you want to enjoy it, pick early classes so you can have the rest of the day off to enjoy yourself. If the problem is oversleeping or not wanting to go in the mornings, pick later classes so you won’t need to be up early.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any magic trick here… if you want to go to school, you have to be the one who gets there. If you have a roommate/parent around, perhaps you could ask them to help nag you until you leave the house as well.</p>
<p>You went to school 9 days last semester? Did I read that right, or did you mean “on time” 9 days last semester?</p>
<p>If the former, then damn. I’ve never missed a class in my entire time in college. It’s nobodies responsibility but your own. I’m not a morning person myself. But I have an alarm clock with two alarms on it. I set the first one for the quiet’ish buzzer, then the second one goes off like 10 minutes later with the radio on like full blast. </p>
<p>When do you go to sleep? That makes a big difference. I’m usually guilty of staying up until like 2-3 in the morning most nights, even when I have class at 9.</p>
<p>I’m not in college yet, but I do have to wake up at 4:30 A.M. to get to basketball practice that starts at 5:15. My trick is making my alarm clock play the country station as loud as possible and putting it on the other side of the room so when I wake up I have to climb down from my loft bed and walk all the way over there to turn it off. Otherwise I’ll go crazy from Billy Ray Cyrus overload. Also, it helps if you are either punished for not attending or rewarding for attending. For me, that’s easy: if you’re late to practice, you sprint and jump constantly until the coach gets tired. For you, you might have to do something else. Think of something on campus that you really enjoy. If you go, you can do it. The main key, though, is self-control. You have to have enough control and discipline to go to class.</p>
<p>Easy–I have no choice but to get up. Back in fall and winter quarter, I had an 8am biochemistry class every day, Monday through Friday, that I had to take because it was required for my major and the professor who teaches that class only teaches it at 8am, and he doesn’t podcast or use slides (he uses the blackboard instead), so I basically had to be there. Last quarter, I was taking an O-Chem class at 8 (it was either a 7:30am O-Chem class or an 8am O-Chem class), and well, you have to be there to see structures and reactions. Even if you listen to the podcast, you won’t know what the professor drew on the board. I’m currently taking a Physics class that meets twice a week at 8am, and because I’m so used to waking up at 8, I just get up easily (plus, my professor uses visual demonstrations, as well as uses the board, and you kinda have to be there in class for those). I’m a light sleeper, so a light vibrating noise from my cell phone will wake me up instantly. </p>
<p>(Actually, I’ve always been able to wake up easily for 8am classes. It’s 9am classes that, for some reason, I have trouble getting to, and 9am classes are always when I feel like falling asleep–not 8am classes, not 10am classes, not 11am classes, but 9am classes. I don’t get it at all)</p>
<p>Next semester, don’t take classes before 10.</p>
<p>However because you won’t be able to do that forever, answer these questions honestly: when do you fall asleep? Do you drink at night? Do you fall asleep faster when you take a sleeping pill or does the sleeping pill not seem to help much? When you have no obligations but aren’t going out, when do you naturally fall asleep and wake up (without a clock)?</p>
<p>i stay up until 4am on the internet. the i don’t wake up until 11 when i have classes at 9. i set my alarm, i set MULTIPLE alarms, but unfailingly i shut them all off and can’t get myself out of bed. sometimes i’ll wander out into the living room and then fall back asleep on the couch there.</p>
<p>In that case, set an alarm at midnight, and when that goes off, you go to bed. Naturally if you’re up late playing games, you’re not going to be up on time. Seriously, if you want to get to class on time, have some self control. Go to bed at a reasonable time. Schedule later classes so you don’t have to be up at the crack of dawn.</p>
<p>You could also try getting a different kind of alarm clock. They make ones where you need to solve a math problem before the alarm’ll shut off. There are also ones that make you get up and chase the clock around the room (it rolls).</p>
<p>I think the best thing you can do is make an effort to change your habits. You can’t stay up til 4 and expect to wake up at 9am consistently, there’s no magic trick for making that schedule work.</p>
<p>You’re asking a question about what our tricks are for waking up on time…and then you say this?</p>
<p>It should be quite obvious. Go to sleep earlier, or don’t take classes that start that early. I’m a night owl myself, but if I have class at 9, I’m in bed by 1 or so at the latest. Staying up until 4 am is not a good practice to be in when you have classes at 9. I like to stay up late too, I always have…but sometimes you just have to force yourself to go to bed. It can be hard at first, but after a while you get used to it. The internet will still be there the next day. I assure you that you aren’t missing out on very much.</p>
<p>Maybe check out one of these alarm clocks. Some of them fly around the room, or require you to solve some type of problem before shutting off.</p>
<p>They even have a bacon alarm clock that wakes you up with freshly cooked bacon. Though I’m of the opinion that having bedside bacon would just be more incentive to stay in bed.</p>
<p>Yeah, in your case streamline your sleep schedule or just don’t take classes in the morning. I don’t know what to say beyond that.</p>
<p>In terms of how I personally get up in the morning, I’m in the minority in that I’m a natural early bird. I wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 on my own and have trouble sleeping in past 7:00 even on my days off. In my case, it’s just a matter of getting ready and out the door on time if I have an early class. Mind you, just because I’m up and awake doesn’t mean I want to be in class at 8:00, but the fact that I’m already wide awake at the time I’m leaving solves half the problem of getting to class.</p>
<p>Just… in your case, consider moving within walking distance of your school. Seriously. There’s no excuse not to get out of bed if your class is literally a few blocks away.</p>
<p>Take classes that have attendance grades.</p>
<p>Find an attractive person in each class and use them to look forward to.</p>
<p>Three words: canned iced coffee</p>
<p>Music alarm clock. You’ll want to turn off the beeping and go back to sleep, but if your favorite album/song/playlist is playing, you’ll be more inclined to let it wake you up.</p>
<p>Don’t feel like walking, can’t move closer? Try a bike, board, or scooter. Or a car if you can afford it.</p>
<p>Tell yourself that for every class you go to, you can watch one episode of TV later.</p>
<p>And, I don’t know, maybe try to get to class so you can learn some things and be around other people? If you’re not getting to class because it’s boring, take interesting classes next time. Change your major if you have to. At the end of the day, there’s no use in spending so much money on school if you don’t even feel like showing up.</p>
<p>And one more thing. If you’re feeling depressed or overly apathetic and jaded to the point where you feel like nothing matters, maybe try talking to some friends or seeing a counselor about this.</p>
<p>Attending 9 days of class in a semester puts OP well past ‘tricks’ to get up on time. If I were he, I’d seriously revamp my lifestyle starting with internet addiction and see someone about depression or something. I’m sorry, but a mentally and motivationally healthy person is not OK with skipping 89% of his classes because of his internet browsing.</p>
<p>The first thing you need to do is to keep yourself away from games an computers past midnight (ideally, past 11pm). You have to set an alarm and when it beeps, whatever you’re doing, you save and turn the computer/game off. You have to develop the reflex and fight the 'just one more game/level/ finishing that email" pull - beep, save, off.</p>
<p>Second, if you’ve set your Fall schedule, CHANGE it and take only classes that start at 10 am and later.
You’ll deal with the “9am class” thing later.</p>
<p>However, your body NEEDS 7 to 8 hours of sleep to function properly. It’s during that time the brain recharges and that you “memorize” and synthesize the information your learned the day before. Your body simply won’t wake up after 4 hours of sleep (sleep time 4, wake up time 8) it’s in its sleep cycle. If your class is at 10, plan to wake up at 9:00 meaning you MUST BE ASLEEP BY 2 am.</p>
<p>I asked those questions ealier (post 10) because there’s a disability whereby some people’s brain is wired “jetlagged”. In order to be verified, it needs to have happened BEFORE you got to college and it must happen EVEN IF you do not play video games, are on the computer, etc. However you must have been in your bed between midnight and 2 tops, every day, with a book or something non electrical, and this for two weeks, trying to figure out when you start feeling tired, then the following day when you wake up and whether it was WITH alarm or without - recording it in a “log”.
This would be very useful to the doctors if your generalist could direct you to a DSPS specialist. They would NOT do that if you’ve been up playing because the patterns would be messed up so you’d have to be very disciplined about it and turn off the computer at midnight then record your “tiredness” time.
There’s no magic solution if that’s what you have, but they could probably help you still.
They would test for various chemicals that the body releases spontaneously (you can’t “fake” it or influence it in any way).
[Delayed</a> Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS)](<a href=“http://dspsinfo.tripod.com/]Delayed”>http://dspsinfo.tripod.com/)
[Delayed</a> Sleep Phase Syndrome - What It Is And How To Treat It](<a href=“http://www.end-your-sleep-deprivation.com/delayed-sleep-phase-syndrome.html]Delayed”>Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome - What It Is And How To Treat It)</p>