Any upper year university student can tell you about a feeling that starts forming in the pit of their stomach around the middle of the semester.
It starts with a nagging feeling and mental lists of what needs to be done and when it’s due. As the semester progresses, that nagging feeling turns into a stern lecture about how you should really get on your workload. Suddenly, exams are less than a month away and your work load has driven you to a pit of despair.
Shawna Foote wants to prevent that from happening to students.
Foote is an academic advisor for STU and has been presenting a talk to students about time management for the past 12 years.
Foote said time management is an issue a lot of students have but don’t recognize.
“The number of students who come in and identify that they have time management issues is very few,” said Foote. “But how many students come in and have time management issues and don’t recognize it? I’d say easily 35 to 40 percent [of the student population].”
This year, the talk was a part of the Lunch ‘n Learn program being put on by STU student services. The program has a variety of workshops throughout the semester for students to attend. These workshops teach skills students need to succeed at university. They are every Wednesday with the last one being on Nov. 13. The week of Thanksgiving, the workshop will be on Tuesday.
They start at 11:30 a.m. and pizza is provided for all who attend.
Foote said time management is a problem for most people, but especially students who are transitioning from high school to university. Foote said she thinks this is because students at public schools normally have people making sure they do their work. At university that’s not the case.
“From having very few opportunities to manage your own time to have to completely manage your own time is a transition that I think students have a lot of difficulty with,” Foote said.
One of the major things Foote talked about in her presentation is the importance of scheduling out your time on a calendar. She said students should make one for the entire semester as a visual reminder of how long they have to do different assignments as well as writing it down in an agenda.
One of the biggest problems for students with time management issues is that they start skipping meals or getting less sleep in order to get work done.
“That’s a huge issue because those are two things that are necessary for life but those are the two things we sacrifice the most,” said Foote.
Getting enough sleep and eating properly is essential, especially for students.
“One thing you see around university around this time of year and around exams are students getting sick,” said Foote. “This is because people are run down and I think the number one reasons for this is sleep deprivation and nutrition deprivation.”
Mahima Premkumar is a fourth year student to attended the talk. She said she used to have a problem with time management but now that she’s almost done school, she’s getting better.
“I procrastinate a lot but now that I’m in my fourth year I’m getting better at time management,” Premkumar said.
Premkumar said this talk is useful and students should embrace these opportunities.
“I think that every student should attend a time management class or session so they can learn more about how to better manage their time,” Premkumar said.
“If I had any advice about time management for students it would be, don’t procrastinate.”
