5 Tips for Preparing for the School Year Ahead
By Jody Bell
We can all see the school year creeping in.
Between dips in the pool and car rides with friends, you may see the occasional “Back To School” sign looming above your head in Target or Walmart.
Some may feel exhilarated by the thought of returning to classes ‒ excitedly picking out new pencils and materials for the upcoming semester. Others are holding on to summer with dear life and dreading early morning bus rides and test days.
Regardless of how you feel, it’s time to embrace that we need to slowly start shifting into school-mode and away from summer-mode. Yes, we do still have over a month before classes start, but, speaking from experience, you might want to start thinking about school sooner rather than later. I was always the student who would refuse to let go over summer until the very last minute, and honestly that just left me even more stressed and unprepared each September.
Here are some great ways you can start preparing for the school year ahead of you!
1. Start using a planner even when you don’t have to
Many schools require students use a planner during the school year to track homework and teach organizational skills.
When I was in high school I would honestly view this planner as homework itself ‒ just another thing to tick off my to-do list and get out of the way. Truth be told, this is not intended to be busy-work, homework, or just another other task. Organizational assignments are actually intended to make homework more manageable and serve as a toolkit during school ‒ a planner is probably the most useful tool in this whole kit.
By using a planner, you can break down long-term goals or assignments into manageable chunks and focus on just a little bit each day ‒ thus eradicating those late-night studying sessions fueled by procrastination.
For the remainder of this summer, grab yourself a planner and start planning out your time. No, you don’t have to fill it out every single day, but, try to set weekly goals for yourself and break down how you will contribute to those goals episodically throughout the week. This doesn’t have to be academic or professional ‒ these goals could be sports practice, or even a summer goal/project you have with friends. The point is, you should start to view your planner and time management skills as something integral to your daily routine and planning. This way, you are building healthy, long-term habits, while also practicing and preparing for an aspect of the school-year ahead of you!
2. Practice your time management skills
Once you’re comfortable using a planner, you can actually take your organizational skills a step further by scheduling your time even more.
We all know the feeling of sitting in front of your computer or notebook trying to do homework but honestly just wasting time. Sometimes we justify this inefficient use of time because we are still able to say we are “working” when in reality, we are just sitting there.
Trust me, there is no shame in being distracted or not focusing 100% on the task in front of you (I’m the queen of staring at my computer and zoning off). However, that doesn’t mean you can’t change the issue.
Next time you have work, a goal, or something that you wrote down in your planner, try to predict and assign how much time it will take you to do it. Then, only allot yourself that amount of time to complete the task. If you don’t finish it ‒ that’s okay! Just write down what you need to finish for this goal in your planner for the next day.
This sort of constraint can be really helpful to learn ‒ once you get into harder classes, you’re going to have to handle many assignments at once, and without a granular schedule it can be hard to get to everything.
3. Review material in classes that “build”
Sometimes that one-week review session in Math each September just isn’t enough to leave you feeling ready for the new material ahead of you.
Math, Science, and English are all classes that tend to “build” on the previous year. After learning long division and semicolons in 8th grade, you’re going to be expected to know this material once you start high school and use it as you study more advanced concepts.
However, some studies show that students can forget up to 39% of the material they had previously mastered during the school year during these summer months. This can make learning the new material in September 10x harder.
So, we recommend you review just a little bit of each of these “building” subjects everyday ‒ just 15 minutes out of your day to read over some notes. Speaking from experience, it is so much easier to review notes, than it is to re-learn them!
4. Think a bit about your professional goals and aspirations
Regardless of your age, it can be helpful to start thinking about the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” question in a bit more detail.
Before you get stressed out just thinking about this, let me reiterate that you do not need to be able to answer that question anytime soon! However, there are things you can do to start the process of thinking about your professional goals early on so when the time comes to answer that question, you feel educated, excited, and confident.
A great way to do this is through research. Think of some of your favorite subjects in school, and look up what degrees people usually get in college within that subject. From there, you can look at the possible jobs that recipients of that degree usually pursue.
Another great way to start thinking about this is by speaking to people. Ask your parents and family about their jobs ‒ understand what they do and why they wanted to pursue this field. Additionally, you can ask your past teachers in your favorite subjects about this and ask if they have any advice or ideas about potential careers in these subjects.
All of this is years in the making ‒ so try to view this process as more exploratory than finding the “right” professional track or goal!
5. Make a bucket list for the rest of the summer
Lastly, we want you to look back on this summer and feel good about what you did and how you spent your time. Let’s be real, spending your whole summer getting ready for school won’t be nearly as fulfilling as a balanced summer that includes activities that you do simply because they bring you joy.
That’s exactly why we recommend a bucket list of activities. This could include learning a new skill, making specific plans with friends, or trying to work with your family to plan a meaningful trip or experience for all of you! To give you an example, some items from my bucket list are:
Try baking a triple layer cake
Make a collaborative painting with my friends
Go on a picnic where each friend brings a surprise food item
No, none of these activities are “practical” or going to aid me in my academic or professional journey — but that’s not the point of a bucket list at all! Ensuring you are having meaningful and memorable experiences is just as important as the time you spend preparing for school, and that’s exactly why I decided to include this in my 5 tips!
However you are choosing to prepare for the school year, just know you are already on the right track by reading this article and starting to think about the academic year ahead of you! If you have any questions, ideas, or want to reach out, shoot me an email: belljr@g.cofc.edu!
Jody Bell, 19, is Girls With Impact’s Chief Editor and a program graduate from Greenwich High School. Girls With Impact is the nation’s only online, business and leadership program for girls 12-21, turning them into tomorrow’s business leaders and innovators.