2 weeks into my second year and I already feel like I'm turning gray. I will grant though that it is partially my fault that this year is so stressful already. I'll give you some thoughts about what NOT to do, to avoid your second year driving you crazy.
1. Figure out what you're gonna do early.
Seriously, freshman year is the time where you are figuring out what you want to do with the rest of your education. However, I would not go as far as to extend your search time to Fall and Spring semesters if you can avoid it. The reason? There's two big ones. 1. Sophomore year is typically major declaration time. You don't have an infinite amount of time before you HAVE TO declare your major. Believe it or not, your time in college runs pretty quick. This leads me to my next reason; 2. Graduating on time. If you screw around too much with your time before you start getting on your major requirements, you will not be graduating in 4 years. Why? Because you need to complete your major requirements to graduate.
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I pretty much burned my entire Freshman fall semester and took only one class for my current major in the Spring. That's a lot of wasted time. Get your life together in the Fall.
2. Space your major requirements out appropriately
Building off of my previous point, don't try to squeeze all of your major requirements into 6 semesters. I'm kinda doing that right now. And it's driving me up the wall. I'm majoring in political science and I'm taking 3 classes for it and a philosophy class this semester. That's a crap ton of reading. Not to mention my one class has 10 essays for the semester (one every week). My girlfriend has to take Organic Chemistry, Biology and other disgusting classes in the space of a semester. Don't do this to yourself. You're gonna be shoving a ton of caffeine down your throat just to keep yourself productive. They don't have very positive side effects.
3. If you have essays, try not to waste too much time
Telling you this from experience, I had a relatively short essay to do (just 3-4 pages). The problem was that I had 15 readings to do before I could do the essay. I kid you not, while I was trying to shove 15 readings into about 2-3 nights, I literally lost my sense of stability (I couldn't walk straight). My eyes were stop-sign red, my bags were heavy and dark. I basically looked like a sleep deprived crack addict.
Moral of the story is, please don't mess around with your time. They say college is the greatest experience of your life. If you play around too much, it will be the greatest nightmare of your life.
