If you’re like me, summer has felt longer than in past years. I am starting later in August than usual, so I’m getting the illusion of it being significantly lengthier (it’s longer by a week). For those of us who developed our summer routine, whether it was waking up early in the morning and going for a run or sleeping in until 2 pm and going to bed around 4 am, our routine for the school year typically differs significantly. It’s difficult readjusting after spending three months away from school not including my summer class baddies. To ensure an easy transition, there are a few steps we can take to begin preparing for the semester ahead and hopefully maintain throughout the spring semester as well. 

Plan Out A Proposed Timeline for Your Weeks 

Look through your current class and work schedule. Find your gaps and figure out how you will utilize them. This is especially important for the girlies who have packed schedules. You need to find time to study, work out, sleep, eat, and do all of the other things you love. Don’t allow yourself to fall too far into the college routine that you forget to set aside time for yourself to do the things you love and unwind. Creating a rough plan for how you will spend your day now will allow you to mentally prepare while also implementing changes into your life as the school year gets closer. Even if you have to change the plan once the semester starts, you will have something rough to work with. Don’t expect your current plan to be exact and set in stone. Tweaks can be made once you gain a better understanding of your limits and how your responsibilities are affecting your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. If you find throughout this exercise that you have too many responsibilities for you to handle, take the time to prioritize. Don’t feel forced to strain yourself and allow yourself the ability to breathe throughout the day without feeling there is no time for you to relax. 

Transition Your Routine Now 

Classes start within the next couple weeks for our girlies whose schools run on the semester system. That means starting a slow transition to fixing sleep schedules or cutting down on social media can begin to ween ourselves off our current habits. If they aren’t sustainable throughout the year, starting now with a slow removal or addition of priorities to our current daily lives. Personally, I could not cut down the massive amount of time I spend on social media within a day, so I am slowly bringing it down and trying to get into a more productive mode. This semester will prove to be extremely packed for me, so I want to make sure it doesn’t hit me all at once. I am slowly ending classes or work for the summer and trying to replace that time with useful actions or hobbies. This way I don’t feel as though I am sluggishly trudging through the end of my summer. I want to make the most of my time and avoid feeling as though I could have spent my summer differently versus wasting the many opportunities that are opening up in my life as my schedule becomes laxer. 

Move-In with Ample Time to Adjust 

For anyone who doesn’t live at home, moving in at least three days prior to the semester can allow for time to settle back into your academic life. You will have time to unpack, catch up with friends, and even possibly spend a day relaxing and allowing yourself a break before the start of the semester. I recommend taking the day before classes start to yourself to allow yourself a break before a stressful semester/ trimester. There will be time to see friends throughout the coming months as you go out together, study, or participate in club activities. This one day enables you to prep yourself with any last-minute action items, such as filling out your planner or reaching out to professors, while also unwinding after having unpacked and uprooted yourself back to campus. If anything, you can go out for a friend dinner to end the day and summer off right. You still have the opportunity to spend all day getting ready for the first day of classes and can see friends before you fall into syllabus week, which inevitably leads to the academic grind. 

Think Positively 

It’s hard to maintain a positive attitude sometimes, especially when summer is ending. Starting the year off with a positive outlook can translate to a positive year. Starting off the year feeling down will only harm the chances of a smooth sailing year. There will be less effort put into ensuring a successful year, so maintain a positive mindset when beginning the year and work to continue it throughout the semester, even as things like midterms, project-heavy weeks, or other stressful events begin to occur. 

The academic year can be stressful. Whether you are starting your first year of college or entering your last, the switch from summer break to the fall semester can be humbling. Those of us who had a freer summer schedule and thrive away from stress will need to mentally prepare for that switch. On the other hand, for the people who love stress and struggled with a possibly free summer, it’s imperative to maintain proper expectations, allowing for a gradual transition. If you’re like me and had a busy summer and will probably also have a busy fall, you may just need to work on switching up how you allot your time throughout the day to these newfound responsibilities that come with college.