There are many stories, experiences and comments about how the daily life of a college student in the US is, especially in the movies. And if you’re considering studying abroad it’s important you know everything you can about class distribution, schedules and spare time to figure out if you’re ready to take the chance.
So, how’s the real routine of a college student? Most Hollywood films portray life in campus like this amazing experience where students usually live in dorms inside the university with fraternities and parties 24/7. Reality might be a bit different…
Compared to high school, a day in college is a lot less structured and you won’t necessarily have the same schedule and amount of classes every day. In fact, you make your own timetable and courses according to what the professor isoffering: you might have only a single class one day and the next have four in a row.
Every Wednesday, Emma has her first class at 9 a.m. so she has to be ready around 8:50 a.m. to be on time. After that, she has some spare time until 11 a.m. enough time to eat breakfast and get some work done.
Emma’s second class finishes at noon and, yet again she has free time until 3:30 p.m. so she can have lunch with friends or work on pending assignments. Her day is done around 5 p.m. and she usually eats dinner with friends,goes back to her dorm and does more work or watches some Netflix.
It sounds like a really chill week, right? Thing is, the main problem with college can be when you have too much spare time, why? Because you underestimate all the things you have to get done and just take it lightly and believe me, you’ll regret it later.
The key to success here is to find balance between getting your assignments done, going to class and havinga great time with your friends.
Emma, for example lives on the college campus so it doesn’t take her long to get to class but this isn’t everybody’s case. When you live outside theuniversity make sure to foresee the time you need to arrive on time and include it in your everyday planning according to your schedule.
On the other hand, while it is true movies exaggerate what college life look like it doesn’t mean there aren’t any events to realise tension and have fun. In fact most universities have movie nights, fairs or presentations for students only.
To keep it short, the most important thing of your college life isorganizing all your responsibilities while taking care of your health. For example, you can make your own study schedules so that you can get all your projects done on time, set specific days to do laundry and buy food, make the effort to sleep at least 7 hours every night, eat 3 meals a day and make sure to go to all your classes. It might sound a bit hard but it’s a lot easier than it sounds.
Even though college life is not as crazy and wild as movies portray it doesn’t mean it has to be a bad experience, on the contrary, you have to make the most out of it and enjoy every single second. Once you find out all the tricks to make your life easier day by day, it’ll be so much better and you’ll become the professional you’ve always wanted to be.