How to Make the Most of Winter Break
Winter break is one of the least-utilized times throughout the year for students. I think most students see this time solely as a “break” because it is short, filled with holidays, consumed with family time, and may be one of the only times during the year you can guarantee your high school friends are also home with free time to meet. Most students feel burnt out from the past-faced fall semester and because winter break is much shorter than summer break, most students do not think of this as a time to be used effectively, but rather, as a time to escape from responsibilities.
Winter break, of course, is a great time to make progress, reset, and recharge. But, it is also a time when you have the capacity to take care of some of the things that may have been neglected or placed on the back burner throughout the semester. You can be reflective and spend some mental energy to complete tasks while simultaneously having additional flexibility with your time due to the lack of structure.
Each of the recommendations in this post can help you to reset for the next semester before you have to start classes.
Reflect. One of the first things I encourage students to do is to take an hour or two to reflect on the previous semester. Consider the following questions:
What did I do well this semester?
If I could go back and start the semester again, what would I do the same?
What processes or approaches do I want to repeat next semester?
How did I approach my schoolwork? Was it appropriate? Could it be improved? If so, how?
If I could go back and start the semester again, what would I do differently?
What can I do to improve my time management and assignment management?
What were some of the challenges I faced? What could I have done to proactively avoid them?
What classes did I enjoy? Why did I enjoy them? Consider: Subject, time of day, faculty, exams vs papers vs projects, or other factors
Enjoy the time and Rest. Then, take a break! Use some of this precious free time towards self-care. Catch up on sleep. Celebrate the fact that you completed an entire semester of courses. Eat (or make) your favorite food. Use a few days at the start of the break as a true escape from academics. Try to watch a television show you have been wanting to watch, or reading a book that has been on your list for a while can be a good option as well.
Get Checked. I encourage students that are going home for winter break to schedule your doctor’s appointments, as most students seem to neglect them or are unable to visit their regular doctors during the semester. Think about your primary care physician, dentist, OBGYN, and other yearly appointments where your doctors are still at home and not in the state of your institution.
Reset. Winter break is also a great time to do a personal “Factory Reset,” just like you might do when you get a new phone or computer. Go through your class notes, textbooks, your room, and organization style (if you are feeling very productive go through your closet too). Then decide what to keep and what needs to be thrown out, recycled, or donated. Review your school supplies. What did you use? What do you need more of? What did you not touch? Do you need to replenish any of these supplies?
Finalize your class schedule. Sometimes initial class registration comes down to what is available at the time you register and what classes do not conflict. If your schedule was created due to these two factors, use some of your time over break to go through offerings for next semester because some classes may now have spots available, and usually most students are not monitoring openings during this time. So, you should be one of the few periodically changing for openings and changing your class schedule during this time to get ahead of the first week when many students are waiting for seats to open.
Confirm degree process. Once your fall grades have been posted, this is a terrific opportunity to confirm where you stand in terms of your degree completion. I suggest that you look through the requirements for your degree during this time to see if you need to adjust your spring semester calendar or reach out to your Academic Advisor to confirm your remaining requirements. Also, depending on your major requirements and earned grades, a course you completed during the fall semester may not actually count towards your degree, so confirming where you stand academically can ensure your path to a timely graduation.
Prepare. If you have access, read through the syllabi for your next semester’s courses. This will give you an understanding of the semester ahead and may help you to decide whether to keep your current class schedule or change one class for another. For instance, during this overview, you may see that two classes have midterms on the same day throughout the semester. Noticing this scheduling issue may convince you to leave one course and find another that fulfills the same requirement. Identifying problems like this so early on makes them much easier to solve than later in the new semester. Be sure to check out my previous post on how to effectively read a course syllabus.
Hopefully, this article has inspired you to tackle a few of the suggested items above to make your transition to the spring semester smoother. Thanks for reading.
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