How To Not Be Overwhelmed In School

[IAmRedThunder]

If anybody understands what its like to be stressed because of school its me. I have been completely swamped with homework since day one of college. After spending hours and hours of my time looking into how to not want to explode, I have personally only found a few things to be successful but I hope it helps.

1) Take an hour a day to exercise, even if its just going for a walk. This definitely works for me because it clears my head and allows me to relax. Especially for days when I have to do homework ALL DAMN DAY, this gives me a proactive break. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain. Endorphins also trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine. So if you exercise, it will make you happier and release stress when you're feeling overwhelmed.

2) If you're in college, go onto "Rate My Professor" before classes start to see exactly what other students think of your potential professor. Whenever I don't check, I always get stuck with an asshole of a teacher that assigns an absurd amount of homework.

3) Only procrastinate when its worth it. By it being worth it, I mean like if you're thinking you're gonna snap, take a day off of doing homework completely. But only do this if you know that you can finish all your homework before its due. Don't procrastinate by watching TV all day when you know you have a 10 page paper due in 2 hours.

4) Talk to your counselor. Sometimes letting out how you feel to an educator helps.

5) Email your teacher. One time I emailed my calculus teacher about how the amount of homework he expects us to do is insane, and he actually cut the assignment. Sometimes teachers don't want their students to feel like they're drowning in homework.

6) Please please please don't let yourself fall behind because you're confused. If you feel like you're not understanding the material, go into the teacher's office hours ASAP. In my physics class, I was very confused with vectors. I got completely in my head. I was distracted. I couldn't focus. I couldn't sleep. The only thing I could think of was how stupid I was because I couldn't understand. I let myself live like that for 3 weeks before I finally sucked it up, and I got help by my teacher. I wish I could have realized I needed help sooner.

7) Find other people who are struggling too so that you can all support each other being in similar situations (Which is why I'm on here)

I hope that this helps a bit, and if you were a struggling student but came out of it, post what you did here if I didn't mention it already :)

[lumos]

Very good take and I agree, though I don't think we can rate our teachers here in Europe.
I'd also add 8: make a schedule and stick to it. That way it's less likely that you'll leave things until the very last minute, and you'll feel like you have a lot more free time if you work on your assignments every now and then, compared to doing them all for two days straight. If you leave it to the last minute, you won't be able to really relax until you get it done, because you'll keep stressing over it in the back of your mind. So even if you're procrastinating by watching TV or hanging with your friends, you'll still feel overwhelmed and stressed out. Which is much more draining than dividing your work into chunks and then being able to relax guilt-free once you've done your work for the day.

[IAmRedThunder]

Yup!!! That's great advice too :) thanks for commenting

[Lucifer_666]

Good take. I also want to mention that it's good to be on the teacher's good side so that he or she will favor you

[IAmRedThunder]

Oh yeah. Being the teachers pet does help a ton. Especially in college

[SmartButBroke]

For me, it was pretty simple--take the right classes, lol.

We didn't do "ratemyprofessor" back in the day, though I know about it, but we used to talk to other students about profs and we also had, like, online message board-type stuff where we'd communicate and people would ask about different courses/profs. So, yes, ask fellow students. In grad school, I ended up not taking 2 classes I really wanted to because I had friends who told me negative things about the professor/the course.

But what I really mean by "take the right courses" is know what you're good at and stick with that. For example, I knew I was a good writer, so any class where your grades were based on papers and written exams would be "easy A's" for me. And I enjoyed them. Any course that had multiple choice and/or true/false-type schitt, I avoided, unless it was a requirement. Because of this, my freshman year of college was my hardest academically... because you have all those multiple choice "intro" classes and math/science requirement-type crap... and I think the first semester was my lowest GPA, too. The first year is also when it's hardest to avoid profs from hell, too.

So, if it's hard your freshman year, just know there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel. I know students who left college after one semester or one year, and I see several people here who dropped out. But, believe me, if you do everything right as far as picking a major that suits your strengths and picking courses/profs that will be easiest for you, the first year should be your hardest year of college by far and the others should be a lot better. My overall GPA including the first year was good enough to get me into several top 10 grad schools and get some scholarship offers.

Also, kind of like the #6 posted here, I took some courses a few years ago to help me switch careers, and one of the profs basically would beg students to ask him for help if they needed it. So, do make sure you do that if you're struggling with a class. I emailed that prof often if I needed help with writing a program (it was a programming class), and, from what he said, I was pretty much the only one emailing him. I ended up getting, like, one of about 4 'A's in that class, and most other students got 'D's and 'F's (my father is a prof at the college, so he logged into the system and we looked at the grades, lol. He also is very willing to help his students). All you have to do is send an email and ask for help.

[SmartButBroke]

Oh, let me add, I knew which classes had what kind of exams and grades from course descriptions. I don't know if all schools include that in course descriptions, but if not I'd email profs and ask them before signing up or try to find links on the college's site that list the course syllabus and such.

[coachTanthony]

I am not a student but it was a really good read! Some of these are good for anyone really! Nice Take!

[IAmRedThunder]

Thanks :) I'm glad you enjoyed it

[rgb008]

I quit school overall to be less overwhelmed.
I make my income with my $25 amazon cards I make from posting on here.

[Elarra]

Or instead of whining about the overload and you not being able to keep, buckle down and do your work. Newsflash: The workforce is stressful. If you can't handle school work, then you need a different major or you need to suck it up.

[CrystalChild]

Lovely advice that I will work on! Thanks

[IAmRedThunder]

No problem :)

[yourmom89]

and no, people, getting high, is not the answer, like the qa, tries to do

[IAmRedThunder]

getting high is definitely not the answer. and I've only gotten high twice in my entire life... so i don't use weed as my basis for emotional stability XD

[JustCallMeLeon]

Good take. Upvoted.

[IAmRedThunder]

Thanks :)

[IceCubedude]

or be like me, no fks given

[Agape93]

Great take

[CT_CD]

8) Just drop out

[CT_CD]

How did that emoji get there. I put an 8