<p>Time management is the key. Three words that will make your life both enjoyable and manageable:</p>
<p>Do. Not. Procrastinate.</p>
<p>Seriously, take care of reading and studying and assignments well ahead of time. Don't leave anything for the last minute, or it will pile up and bite you in the ass (and believe me, it leaves a mark).
And make time to reward yourself; go out and have fun, play some games, and meet people.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, do most students spend their weekends reviewing the material from the previous week and then getting a head start on next week's material or am I just kidding myself? Or do ppl instead relax on weekends?</p>
<p>I generally don't study on Fridays or Saturdays. But as soon as I wake up at 2 pm on Sunday, I get down to business.</p>
<p>haha...well I suppose as long as it doesn't interfere with your schoolwork, then playing videogames all night isn't the most horrible thing you could do...I've just known a lot of people who have done that and haven't been in the best shape the next day :)
Often during the weekends people will do extra-curricular stuff, like volunteering or a job....other people do homework...or both. I mean, I think it's perfectly reasonable to set aside a chunk of time to do "fun stuff" over the weekend, as long as you don't have like 3 midterms or something coming up the next week. Again, it really depends on a lot of stuff.<br>
About reviewing material for next week, this is something I would recommend...although my grades were good for freshman year the one thing I regret is not reading the material before lecture. As a result sometimes it was difficult for me to pay attention just b/c I had no idea what the teacher was talking about, and then I felt like the lecture wasn't all that useful.
But don't worry about it, you will get the hang of everything once you start...</p>
<p>A poll conducted at my school said on average students, regardless of major, got about 5 hours of sleep per night during the week, which in my experience has been pretty accurate. I definitely don't think that has as much to do with getting all of one's work done as it does balancing a social life with work, and sleep being what's sacrificed in the process.</p>
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as long as it doesn't interfere with your schoolwork
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Oh, it definitely did. Just ask my organic chemistry professor.</p>
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as long as you don't have like 3 midterms or something
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As long as we're on the subject of things that interfere with my schoolwork, does watching three seasons of Alias in four days during finals week count?</p>
<p>In all fairness, the first three seasons of Alias were addicting. I watched them all at the same time as well, although I was smart and watched them at the beginning of the semester.</p>
<p>Just out of curiousity, did any of your roommates complain about you guys going to sleep at like 2 AM or did they do the same thing? I mean roommates can also play a role in one's sleeping habits b/c you don't want to disturb them and stuff.</p>
<p>As long as I used headphones and let them turn the lights off, it wasn't a problem. And I only had roommates for one year, anyway.</p>
<p>When I had classes at 9, I tried to get to bed at most by 1. The days I had class at 11, 2 or 3.</p>
<p>Of course, putting off things like labs and playing FIFA pushed back those times a few times. I missed a good amount of classes too.</p>
<p>My roommate and I had very different sleep schedules</p>
<p>I usually slept from 1 or 2 until 8:30-9:00, and he basically slept from 5 or 6 AM late until late in the afternoon (skipped his classes everyday). We used headphones at night, and allowed the other to have the lights off when they wanted.</p>
<p>yeah dude, stray away from the 8AM classes (there's a reason why the prime time to take classes is between 10am - 2pm). As for the sleep, yes it is good for you (especially as a teenager) to get 7-9 hours of sleep. But... you decided to go pre-med and you have to make sacrifices, the first of which being a 100% healthy sleep schedule. That being said, I usually find myself going to sleep between 2am and 3am (classes usually don't start till 10), but this isn't because I have too much work. Instead, it's because teenagers are a lot more alert between the hours of 10pm and 2am. And if you're in a dorm, this is about the only time you'll get a chance to sit down quietly and do your work. Personally, before 10pm I'm usually relaxing/socializing/EC's/etc. But seriously, even if you're in the easiest major at your university, expect pulling loads and loads of all-nighters. Cheers!</p>
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But seriously, even if you're in the easiest major at your university, expect pulling loads and loads of all-nighters. Cheers!
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</p>
<p>And I thought my work ethic was bad. With a minimal amount of planning, you can avoid all-nighters. I think I could count the number of college all-nighters on my fingers.</p>
<p>Seriously, planning work and sleep isn't that hard. I don't know why everyone is flipping out about it. Sure, I don't all get the 8+ hours of sleep I'd like every single night, but I usually get enough. Like I said before, do some planning - figure out what's important and prioritize. With a little planning, you can be a slacker, have fun, and still earn good grades. :D</p>
<p>^^^I think this is true. Premed is not as bad as most people make it out to be. I have study habits that were average at best and still graduated with a decent GPA. I don't think I ever pulled a true all-nighter and on 2-3 occasions had to stay up past 5 AM.</p>
<p>I'm only in my second year, but I haven't pulled an all-nighter yet and I don't plan to in my remaining time here.
I'm strictly opposed to the very principle behind all-nighters; I just don't believe in them. I always make sure I get things done on time; at the very least, the day before they're due (or get all studying done... at the very least, before the day of an exam).</p>
<p>Even with my ridiculously poor study habits -- really, really awful -- I only ever had to pull one all-nighter.</p>
<p>That ONE all-nighter, the only time I ever stayed up the whole night, was when I was determined to watch the second season of 24 in real time. 5 AM for Jack Bauer was 5 AM for me.</p>
<p>BDM:</p>
<p><em>LOL!</em> That's absolutely hilarious. That show seems so overwrought to me - the classic action-movie line, "THERE'S NO TIME!!" Is it really such high drama that it's worth watching "in real time"?</p>
<p>I'd also like to specify that I didn't pull all-nighters for my major or pre-med classes until my very last semester when I was juggling finishing my thesis and my major. What really killed me were the writing assignments in my non-science classes. For some of them, the only way I could write them was banging on my keyboard at 3 AM in the morning. Considering it all, I must've written some spectacular stuff, because some of that 3 AM writing got the best grades I've ever gotten on papers.</p>
<p>I do schoolwork until 1:30 AM and go to sleep 2AM and wake up at 7:20 AM for the 8AM classes everyday. It's hard in the beginning, but sleep is a necessary sacrifice (since I can't sacrifice classes or study time) and once I got used to it, it became second-nature. I try to get my sleep on the weekends.</p>
<p>I heard somewhere that regardless of how much sleep you get, you should do it in a fairly regular pattern each night. If you go to bed at 1 AM everynight, go to bed at 1 AM every night. This is good because no matter what time you have to wake up, at least your body will be in a cycle to sleep well during those hours. For example, if you go to bed at 10pm on mondays, thursdays and sundays and 2 am on the rest, your body mightn't be used to sleeping from 10-2 (or something like that) and that sleep will be less conducive to good rest. I found this very helpful during my sophomore year of college. Freshman year I could rarely get deep-cycle sleep unless it were in a regular pattern.</p>
<p>this isn't where I heard/read it, but part of it explains my point:</p>
<p>cheers!</p>
<p>ooo, and yes, 24 is definitely worth that</p>