By Cody Frohman
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Friends, family, and professors have repeated this phrase to me numerous times over the past few years, and as I enter my fourth semester of college it is starting to sink in that this cliché really is true.
Planning used to be a big part of my life. I was the kid who wrote down every assignment in high school and strived to finish the assignments weeks early. But somewhere between the end of my first semester of college, and the start of my second I stopped planning. I had a really easy course load and it seemed like the need to plan vanished. I had so little going on I could easily keep up with everything without really planning. I found myself procrastinating on everything, barely making deadlines, and forgetting about scheduled quizzes. I got through the semester just fine so I continued along my third semester, taking 18 hours, and working 20+ hours a week. But it soon hit me that I needed to start planning or my grades would take a hit.
So I started planning again, writing out every assignment, every quiz, and every test. Now I’m entering my fourth semester and I am starting strong. I am organizing my days to ensure that I am being productive and efficient with my time.
One of the things I love about new semesters is the opportunity to start over. There are new classes, new experiences, and new opportunities. Along with a new start, comes the opportunity to start strong. The steps we take determine our direction, and if we take steps to start strong we will end strong. But if we start off the semester without a plan, we’re going to find ourselves at the end barely treading water.
My suggestion to you would be to start strong by planning. Make a plan for what you want this semester to look like. If you want a 4.0 GPA, then make a plan to study. If you want to stop procrastinating, plan your time to ensure that you are finishing tasks efficiently and productively. If you want to run the Bearathon, make a plan so you won’t end up attempting to run 13.1 miles on March 21st without taking a step before the race!
Take advantage of the new semester and plan your steps, it’ll save you a lot of pain in the end!