Tips For Getting and Staying Organized In College

Pauline Vigil
The Paw Print

Three weeks into classes and students were complaining of being overwhelmed with homework, not having enough time to study, and forgetting about assignments or due dates for assignments.
Now is the perfect time to tackle the problem head on, but what is the problem? Is it that professors really do assign too much homework? Perhaps between work, school, and a social life there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Those excuses aren’t very likely to be true since plenty of college students find ways to navigate the maze of college life just fine. What is their secret?
The secret to surviving college is Organization. Well at least one of the secrets.
“I make a binder for each class. I put my syllabi, my past homework assignments, my research papers, and anything pertaining to that class in that binder. It helps if the binder is at least three inches thick and made of hard plastic for durability,” stated Marina Martinez, ASU Nursing Student.
For those students who prefer technological ways of organizing their life, there is a handy little app called “Complete Class Organizer.” This app is well worth $4.99. It keeps track of all your classes and allows you to separate them by semester. It does take a little time initially to input your assignments and their due dates, but once that is out of the way, the app reminds you when things are due and for what class. It also allows you to download PDF’s and store them in a file for a particular class, or bookmark a website and access it later. If you have the app on a device with a microphone you can record a class lecture and replay it again later. Perhaps one of the handiest features of this app is the note feature, which allows you to type notes during a class lecture and save them to be printed later. Of course there are other calendar/student planner apps out there, but this seems to be the most bang for your buck.
“People are more organized in areas of their life they care about, so find a way to make college meaningful,” stated ASU Professor B.J. Waddell.
Every student at least once in their college career as been through a class that is required as part of a liberal arts degree, but didn’t really want to be there. Those are the classes that are the hardest to stay focused in, remember assignments for, and find enjoyment in. However, if a student can find a way to connect with the class, professor, or fellow students it might make the class more enjoyable. According to Waddell if a student can do that, they are more motivated to be organized for that class.
A simple but often overlooked area of organization is emails. Be sure that if you don’t use your grizzly email to let your professors know which email you prefer. Also most devices let you add more accounts to keep track of all your emails.