By Katerina Mansour, Staff Writer

Published in print Jan 21, 2015.

We’ve all been there. A new semester begins and we plan on doing everything possible in order to succeed. Organize, plan, do work ahead of time, no more distractions, study every day, read every day, do everything and anything possible to get the best grades. We’ve got it all figured out, this semester is going to be a walk in the park!

We went out and bought planners, new binders, a notebook and folder for each class, more highlighters than you could possibly imagine, post-its, anything you could think of is what you got. You’re going to color coordinate your notes, or retype them on your laptop each day. You’re going to go through all readings and highlight the most important parts, you’re going to write yourself reminders on post-its and color coordinate everything.

And for a while you do all these things. You’re on top of things, you feel like nothing can go wrong, until all of a sudden you realize you’re slowly not doing any of these things anymore. You started to forget to color coordinate, you lost your post-its, you ended up using one notebook for all your classes, your folders only have old paperwork in them, what happened? Well, life happened.

The fact is we’re all human, and we’re all bound to go through periods where we can’t be as on top of things as we’d like. Work hours started piling up, family issues happened, a class turned out to be more difficult than expected. So many things like this happen to make us lose our rhythm.

Once we realize this has happened, we become somewhat discouraged, frustrated to the point where we give up on all those great habits we started earlier in the semester. But that’s the wrong approach. So when dealing with the reality of your semester clashing with your initial personal goals and expectations, here are a few tips:

1. Being organized really does make a difference. You’re more likely to study and understand material when it’s been put together logically and legibly.

2. A positive outlook is crucial. Go into the semester confident you can succeed, and when you hit bumps in the road, just keep going with your head held high.

3. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Sure, having a good GPA this semester would be great, but the more pressure you put on yourself the more likely you are to break down and give up.

4. Balance your schoolwork and your social life carefully. If you spend your entire semester studying with no socialization, you’ll go crazy. But if you go out with your friends every chance you get, finding time to study will be close to impossible.

5. Sleep. We all go a little bit crazy in college and decide that sleep is a last priority, but lack of sleep just leads to headaches, falling asleep in class and being too frustrated overall to function properly.

6. Ask for help if you need it. Some people arrive to college feeling they have something to prove, and can never show any flaw or sign of weakness. This is the wrong way to go. If you’re struggling with your classes, ask for help. Talk to your professor during office hours or email them. Show them you’re trying and they’ll surely help you succeed.

7. Log out of Netflix! I’m serious. We all know how easy it is to start writing a paper, and suddenly find ourselves 20 episodes into Friends, New girl, or whatever show had enough entertainment value to distract us.

8. Remember that in the end, all that matters is that you’re satisfied with the efforts you put in and the results you achieved. Nobody else’s opinion or grades should matter or make you feel less happy with yourself.

Most of us are aware all the things listed above, but the important part is to remind ourselves of them regularly. We’re bound to slip up once in a while. Sometimes more often than we’d like, but as long as we don’t give up we should be able to keep our chin up, and move forward. Life is what you make it, but education is an incredible privilege. One we must never forget.

We’re here for a reason: to learn. If you’re not learning or if you’re absolutely miserable here at UNCG or in college in general, it might be time to think of alternative paths for yourself. Let us not forget that college is not the only avenue to success in life. So good luck this semester in trying to make your expectations become reality!