College > Getting Ready > Freshmen year: The Workload

freshmen year: the workload

So you are ready to head off to college, you’ve heard tons of people tell you what college is all about - but what is it going to be like for you?

Well that depends,

For some the first year is overwhelming, for others a cake walk – but for the vast majority it is somewhere in between. One thing is for sure, you can count on your freshman year being fun and educational - in and out of the classroom.

You are probably at least a little worried about a couple areas of your quickly approaching college career. Including the workload at their chosen school, I am telling you now – don’t be.

Freshman year classes are mostly “intro to” courses, nothing beyond the abilities of any high school graduate. Success in an intro level course is mostly based on being organized, keeping up with readings and writing decent papers. Anyone who is willing to put the time in can do very well in an intro level course.

In fact I’ve never heard of someone failing out their freshmen year due to an inability to keep up with the workload. Students fail because mostly because of distractions. College is fun, and there is always something going on. It is easy to get caught up in the social scene and fall way behind in all of your classes. Once you’ve fallen behind it is very difficult to catch up, and most students don’t, resulting in a very poor GPA.

It is extremely easy to avoid this with a couple steps. Understand why you are attending college at the most simple level, to get a degree in your chosen field. If this truly is your goal, you need to setup some basic habits that will take you there. For your freshman year simply keeping organized and spending 1-3 hours a day on your studies will take you far. Doing well academically in college doesn’t mean that you need to miss out on all of the fun – it just means you will be around to enjoy it longer!

You’ve probably lived the majority of your life in some sort of balance, between school, work and social relationships. When you move to college you will have to essentially re-orient your balance. Make sure that you aren’t focusing too much on one aspect of your life, and missing out on others, including your GPA.

Have fun, meet everyone you can and most of all keep an open mind and you will do fine!

Getting ready for your first year? You should also check out "Getting Ready".

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