Gabriella’s Guide: Organization Tips for Student Success – San Jacinto Times
Gabriella’s Guide: Organization Tips for Student Success
Gabriella Garza, Co-Editor-in-chief|September 24, 2015
Joyce Marshall/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT
Helpful school supplies and efficient habits will help students breeze through Fall classes.
At the beginning of the school year, everyone is refreshed and ready to embark on a new semester. As the weeks pass, organization fades and our backpacks and binders become a pile of clutter. However, that does not have to be the case if you perform a little maintenance and keep everything in the right spot. Getting organized does not take much; staying organized is the real battle.
The first week of school should be spent taking notes and figuring out what supplies are necessary. For many college students, that involves heavy textbooks and binders loaded with dividers. Although most students prefer keeping all their work in a single place, this system usually ends up being harder to keep neat as the weeks go by.
Instead, keep different folders to separate each class and prevent mixing work from different courses. Besides, choosing a designated color for each class makes it easy to spot the supplies for classes you are attending on a particular day.
Furthermore, I highly recommended a planner if you are taking more than one class. Highlighting each class assignment, with its designated color, will help you stay on top of due dates and know exactly what is coming up without having to search in different places.
File with a smile
As the weeks go by and you start receiving work back from your professors, the best thing to do is file them away at home. Do not keep them in your folders. Carrying around old assignments will only make it harder to keep folders clean and will result in mixing up old work with new work as it comes in.
If you like to study with flash cards, it is a good idea to keep about 20 blank ones in each class folder so they are accessible when you think something should be written down. Also, it would benefit you to buy (or make) a flash card holder with dividers so you can start organizing them for future needs.
If you use notebooks for note-taking, make sure to date every page, indicate the name of the class, and write a brief summary of what you learned that day to keep your notes easy to read. It is also helpful when you are looking for the notes from a specific date. If you use a laptop to take notes, print out all the notes each week and keep them in a folder at home.
Lastly, review your notes and clean out your folders at the end of each week to familiarize yourself with the material you have covered, and file what does not have to go with you to class anymore.
Organization does not take long, and if done right, it can be a very useful study tool.
Gabriella's Guide