5 Things to do this month for a successful Spring semester

The key to your success this semester is in how you prepare for it. That means that if you prepare for a strong and successful semester over the next three weeks, you’ll be able to reach your academic and career goals. From raising your GPA to landing an internship, following these five tips will help you get there with less stress at the end of the semester. And let’s be honest, we do not need any added stress during the finals week.

1. Plan

January is already about resolutions, plans and goals for a better year, and it is something that you can extend to your semester as well. By creating a plan and committing to it, you will be able to streamline your work throughout the semester and will be able to avoid cramming at the end. When you plan at the beginning, you’ll also avoid chaos mid-semester during midterms week. In order to plan successfully, you want to create deadlines for yourself. Review your syllabi for each class and note the hard deadlines in your planner. Then, you will need to create deadlines for yourself. These deadlines should be achievable and break down everything you need to do in order to be finished by the hard turn-in deadline. When you do this, you will notice that it won’t take as long to finish that huge project and it will be less stressful because you’re doing a little bit at a time. Even if you think that you work better under pressure and at the last minute, try this approach since it is still deadline oriented.

When it comes to planning you also want to make sure that you know your schedule and deadlines and have them in a place where you’re going to see them. If you seem to always be forgetting your planner, then it’s time to move everything to an online calendar so that it syncs to your phone and you have it no matter where you are. This is especially handy for when you have an assignment due on a Monday and you’ll get reminded while you’re out and about on the weekend. Take some time during the first week of school to add any major deadlines to your phone’s calendar.

This is also the best month to start setting goals for the semester. You’re re-energized from the winter break and this will be the month when you’re feeling most motivated. When it comes to goal setting, it’s vital that these goals are reachable and that you give yourself a time frame for these goals. 90 days is usually a great time frame to work with. You can learn more about setting achievable goals here.

2. Introduce yourself to your teachers

The beginning of the semester is the time to meet and get to know you teachers, not the end of the semester. Teachers respect students who introduce themselves at the beginning of the semester and it allows them to get to know you and your work. When they can get to know you before you have any issues in the class, they will be much more willing to work with you and make sure that you succeed in the class. If you’re a junior or senior it’s extremely important that you start building these relationships with your professors because they will be the ones who will be writing you recommendation letters for graduate school and for job applications. By getting to know your teacher at the beginning of the semester, they will be able to write you a much stronger recommendation letter because you will have given them a chance to get to know you. Graduate admissions offices and human recourses departments can tell when a letter is written by a professor who really knew the student and one that is generic and they only had one or two interactions with the professor.

3. Find a study group and tutor

If you have any classes that look like they’ll be tough, it’s time to find a study group and a tutor now. While it may seem like you’ll be fine in the class, any uncertainty is best addressed at the beginning of the semester because the study group and tutor and work with you at the pace of the class. This makes it much less overwhelming than having to find a study group or tutor at the end of the semester and they have to re-teach you an entire semester’s worth of work. If you’re not sure where to find a tutor for the class, ask an upper classman who shares that major or ask your professor for suggestions. If you have a teacher’s assistant, they can help you find a tutor as well. For starting a study group, ask those that sit by you in class or at the beginning of the semester, send out an email to everyone in the class. You might be surprised how many people want a study group but where afraid to ask. Now’s your opportunity to be a leader.

4. Apply for Internships, establish good relationships with career semester, work on your resumes, get recommendation letters

It’s not too early to start applying for internships. Most summer internship programs open their application windows during January, including internships with large companies like Zappos. Use the free tools that are available to you through your HonorSociety.org membership. These tools include JobSearch to search for jobs and internships, career advice and mentorship, and internship partnerships with highly sought after companies.

5. Visualize the end of the semester

The Spring semester flies by with Spring Break in between and summer quickly approaching. Keep your eye on the prize and visualize the end of the semester so that it continues to feel within reach. This will keep your motivation and energy high so that you can not only start your semester strong, but finish it even stronger.