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Higher education is an internship for adult life thinly disguised as more school.
As you head off for the most exciting and stressful period of your life so far, you’ll do well to pack in some tried and true advice for making the most of this real life’s beginning. You are known as the generation of IM and text messaging, complete with your own shorthand–so language fits in with your busy lives.
Fortunately for this writer, and you who will use it to your advantage, the trial and error learning (wisdom) of the ages has also been collected in shorthand called clichés. While sometimes dismissed as “only” clichés by the uninformed, you guys should get it. These sayings are packed with meaning and deserve a new respect in this fast-paced, often frantic age. Hang a few on the tool pegboard of your brain, and put them to use as you forge your own path in life. They’ll take up little more space than MOOS and BFF, and are more reliable than either of these!
TIME MANAGEMENT
“The early bird gets the worm”...or, the “A”, or the parking place, the girl’s attention, the best selection in the cafeteria, the front row seat...you know, a less stressed life. Get up 20 minutes earlier than you have to and the rest of your day will go better. It’s true. That’s why it is a cliché. Giving in to the temptations to sleep in, put off, hang-out, blow off, and skip is the downfall of many freshmen. Don’t be one of them.
MONEY MANAGEMENT
“A fool and his money are soon parted.” Those credit card booths set up all over campus during orientation are not there for YOUR benefit, contrary to what the barkers say. Every business has a legitimate mission–to transfer money from your account to theirs. Sure, credit cards are a convenient, useful service IF used carefully and responsibly. (Remember, this is an “internship” for life.) However, if the prospect of easy credit has “visions of sugar plums” dancing in your head reminiscent of the Christmas Eve when you were six, better skip the signature card until you’ve gotten a handle on the cash flow situation.
RELATIONSHIPS
“Make new friends, but keep the old; those are silver, these are gold.” Actually, this is a line from a poem by Joseph Parry that has become a cliché because of the truth contained in it. One of the more exciting aspects of attending college is meeting new people and making new friends. But, carry into those new relationships the person you have become already with respect for those people and experiences that have brought you to this point. Sure, you will grow and change, add and subtract from interests and opinions as you live and learn in heady days. However, you have already become a valuable, unique person through the life you have lived and the people who have loved you so far. Take your whole self into new relationships. Give new friends the benefit of the entire package instead of giving away parts of your-self in order to be liked by some who may not be worth the sacrifice.
HEALTH AND WELLBEING
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Good practices keep the body, mind and soul intact and in good working order. It is far easier to KEEP good health for a lifetime by practicing good habits of eating nutritious food, exercising, sleeping enough, focusing on the positive, meditating on the important, avoiding risky behaviors and balancing work and play than it is to REGAIN good health after squandering it on excesses that are only pleasant for a moment and often consequential for decades.
This is your life. One last cliché: “The ball is in your court.” Make the most of your internship for life and all your memories will be sweet and all your tomorrows will be filled with promise.
Author: Sandy Breazeale, PhD., is a licensed professional counselor, educational consultant, speaker, college professor and writer in private practice in Columbia, SC. In one of her past lives, she was an administrator at the University of South Carolina where she taught in the award-winning freshman orientation program, University 101.
For more words of wise advice go to WWW.ClicheSite.com
Sidebar: Get a Jumpstart with “Introduction to College”
Most colleges and universities offer a semester long “Introduction to College Life” or some similarly titled course for credit. It is ALWAYS worthwhile to arrange your schedule to take this orientation to the higher education experience, even if it means delaying an academic course for another term. Study skills, academic advice, an introduction to campus services and facilities, money and time management, healthy lifestyle guidance, and personal issues help are all usually a part of these offerings.
In addition, this class gives you a “jumpstart” to your social life by getting to know a group of like classmates in a “user-friendly” academic setting. An alternative, is to invest in a course in study skills at one of the businesses offering academic help such as Sylvan Learning. The more prepared you are at the beginning of your higher education years, the better chances you have for an overall successful and enjoyable educational experience. Or, to follow the cliché theme: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Sidebar: Dr. Bart’s 5 Keys to College Success
- Schedule 1 hour of free time before and after each of your classes (if possible). Use that last hour before class to review your study notes before tests. It is a research-proven fact that “cramming” works! The hour after class is an excellent time to insure your lecture notes are legible, to make certain you understand the assignment given that day or to ask your professor for a clarification of any material you did not understand during class.
- Start studying on day #1 of class. Sit in the front of the room, take notes and introduce yourself to the professor. The hardest lesson I learned in college was the damaging effects of getting behind in class.
- Identify a same-sex “study buddy” within the first week of class. This person will serve as your accountability partner, will be someone with whom you can share lecture notes and will be an ally when you need assistance with difficult material. In addition, a good goal is to be prepared for exams the day before examinations. By doing so, you and your study buddy may use the night before to quiz each other on the test material. Try to guess what the professor is going to include
on the test.
- Find a quiet, low-stimulus study place. Some characteristics of an effective study place are: no eating, no music, no television and low traffic flow.
- While going to college, your main occupation is learning. Approach this tack as you would a regular job. Try to complete your homework/studying before darkness falls. I contend that you can accomplish in 1 hour of daytime studying what takes 2 hours to do at night. If you have finished your “day’s work” by night time, you will be able to enjoy (without quilt feelings or adverse consequences) the plays, movies, concerts and sporting events that are part of the college experience.
“Dr. Bart” is really Dr. Tom Bartsokas, a practicing Orthopedic Surgeon in Franklin, TN. He was Valedictorian of his high school and went on to medical school. He hands these study tips out to all of his high school and college age patients. Dr. Bart really cares about their bones and their brains!
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