This is time of the year when we select our classes for the spring semester. After I go through the classes catalogue complaining about why I can’t all take all of them, I select my top choices which will be eventually narrowed down until I reach the allowed number of credits. Which classes to choose is actually a pretty interesting topic that I will write about later. For now, I want to discuss the benefits in different ways of splitting classes throughout the week.
Most people that appreciate sleeping will say that one must be crazy to take 8:30 (or even 9:30) classes, specially on Mondays. That made total sense to me, so I made my first semester schedule in a way that all my morning classes started at 10:30 (with the exception of one 9:30). On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have classes from 10:30 to 14:45, so I am only able to have lunch at 3pm. On the other days, I normally eat at 12:00.
For some people, 8:30 classes really would not work, because that means going to bed around 12am (considering you want to sleep at least what is recommended in order to be healthy). Also, if one is in a varsity team that practices every morning, he/she may not be able to make it on time. But other people simply feel a natural laziness to wake up early (me included).
However, I am going to be brave enough to change my schedule to next semester. I actually want to have the earliest classes. Before you conclude I am insane, let me explain.
Since I am taking an unusual amount of classes, my days are pretty much packed. For instance, after lunch on Mondays, I go from 1:30 to 5:45 with interruptions barely enough to go to the next class. Then I have dinner, and go again from 7 to 9:30 nonstop. That repeats pretty much until Thursday. So a lot of my “free” time is spread in small sections over the week. That is not very good because for many homework and projects, it is much more productive to do them beginning to end in one seat.
That means that the time I have for homework and studying is actually at night, basically from 9pm to how late I need to go. Therefore, I naturally have to go to bed late, which makes me even more tired and decreases my performance.
Also, I have had a hard time trying to schedule things. For instance, if I need to call my bank manager or bring documents to Dowling Hall, I have to wait until Friday, because during all other days, I am in classroom during business hours, and when I finally am free, everything has already closed.
So my plan is to shift everything some hours earlier, and that would force me to go to bed earlier. Something that really worked out and I plan to keep was having a free Friday afternoon, because it is when I have many straight hours to solve anything that comes up. After I change my schedule, I will let you know how it worked out!
Feature image credit: "time" by Uditha Wickramanayaka under CC BY_NC 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/) (cropped)