I have to say, I didn’t quite expect a real job to require sending out so many emails. But so far that seems to be 90 percent of what I’ve done as the Gladeo League Managing Editor.
However that’s neither here nor there. We may have had a meeting today, but I’m not looking to talk about that in this blog post.
I also don’t really want to talk about my physical before that, since the only significant take-away is how much my arm hurts because of the two shots I got.
Also the fact that I haven’t lost any weight since last year, I suppose. But I prefer to look at it as I haven’t gained any weight either.
So yay for starting exercising regularly!
No, today I’m just going to talk real quick about one of those staple first week of school traditions:
Marking down dates and creating binders.
Typically I’ll go to school for the first week with a smaller messenger bag rather than my big backpack. Every class usually just spends the time going over syllabi and starting the first basic lectures, after all. So I usually only need my laptop and a notebook.
I’ll usually use the notebook that later becomes my homework agenda for the semester.
Once the first week is through and I have all of my syllabi compiled, I spend a day going through them all and jotting down the major dates (exams, research papers, etc.) on my wall calendar.
Naturally all of the big things wind up mostly lining up in December, but this semester I do have a few papers scheduled to be due in November and my exams are scattered throughout the few final months.
By this point I usually have all of my textbooks ordered and delivered considering Cal State Fullerton lists all of the required texts online.
Chegg is pretty cheap and quick when it comes to rentals, in my experience.
With the important dates established and my books ready and waiting, next comes my personal favorite step in the process: Setting up the binders.
My philosophy on how to create each binder for my classes varies from semester-to-semester. Sometimes my professors will require a single binder to be devoted to their coursework, sometimes they’ll even have specific divisions in mind within said binder.
Those are the fun professors. Especially when they require binder checks throughout the semester.
Thought you got away from that requirement in middle school?
Think again.
Luckily, none of my classes have those stipulations this semester. So I’m free to build everything the way I want.
Thus I’ve decided to create two primary binders for this semester.
One will be my psychology binder. I’m taking two psych classes and both seem like they’ll have a significant amount of notes and assignments to keep track of. So I’m going to keep them together, which should hopefully be extra helpful considering how much overlap Sensation/Perception and Learning/Memory will have.
My second binder with be focused on Comm courses and include a section for my one honors class. Both of my Comm classes are one-day-a-week and probably won’t have as much overall bulk as the rest despite being three-hour classes each. Figure I can throw in my also not very hefty honors workload and it shouldn’t be too much trouble.
Sometimes I’ll set up my binders to correspond with days of the week, that way I only have to bring one a day and keep the weight off my back. But this semester everything is a little jumbled, so it’ll make more sense to go by connected classes.
With that said, everything comes together and all I’ll have left to worry about is translating my first day notes from my notebook onto lined paper so it can fit into my lecture note tabs. Wherever those wind up.
Because even if I’ve already done the work once, continuity means enough to me that I’ll copy it all over again.
But perhaps not right now. There are monsters to hunt, after all.
If you’re still going to school, how do you like to prepare your supplies? Or I suppose for work if that question also applies there.
Let me know in the comments, I’d be interested to hear about it!
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 