Welcome to my year end review AKA The blog in which I sing the praises of my calendar.
So this semester ended a lot better than the last one and as you may have guessed, I attribute this to my calendar. Last semester at the midterm I was sitting pretty with straight A's. In fact, I had straight A's for about 75% of the fall semester, however, when it was all over with I ended up with 2 B's and one A.
Now, bear in mind I graduated college in 2009, so I have been out of the game a bit and it took some time to acclimate to the work load. Side note about the workload: (Not that I'm trying to scare anyone off) Between my three classes each semester I had to read at least a couple hundred pages+ each week. This was in addition to keeping up with (or attempting to anyway) the latest news in the library and information science (LIS) biz. Do you have to keep up with the scholarly journals and news articles? No, but it really is necessary so that you can see how your textbook readings apply to real world library issues, plus it makes discussion boards more interesting if you can cite other non-class readings to back up your opinion or give examples.
Anyway, back to the grade situation. This semester I received straight A's in all three of my classes. So what did I do differently? My first semester, I focused on my weekly assignments but I didn't leave myself enough time to work on the various papers and assignments, or else I would spend too much time on the research aspect of the assignment. This led to a ton of all nighters and general anxiety on my behalf. The lack of assignments in grad school is a double edged sword. Yes, you have less to do, but that means each grade is that much more important. For most of my classes, I received grades for weekly discussion board participation (ranging anywhere from 2 to 4 required posts/week), 2-4 papers (or projects) per class, along with a midterm and final. Well this semester, I was determined to get straight A's and not be super stressed out. Enter: The calendar. As soon as I got my syllabuses, I wrote out my reading assignments and my semester assignments. I worked on completing the weekly reading & participation activities during the first part of the week, and that allowed me to spend the remainder of the week working ahead on assignments due in the near future. The other big thing for me was going to the library to actually write my papers and other projects. For some reason, sitting at my computer at home I am much more likely to procrastinate, but at the library I have an easier time of staying on task. Plus, being able to look at my monthly calendar and see what is due and when, let me know of multiple assignments with the same due date and helped me plan my time accordingly.
I don't mean to lecture about calendars and staying focused, I just want to share what study habits have worked best for me in the hopes that they help others. So if you have any questions about pursuing a master's in library and information science, either in general or specific to UK's program, feel free to ask me here in the comments or on twitter (@whitnage). =)
