How students can cope and flourish at their University of choice

Many University, students if not all, find themselves reporting on the first date of their college life with high hopes and dreams.

But somewhere along the way, challenges start trickling in, Supplementaries start piling up and class absentia becomes a normal thing. Exams becomes a horror movie which no one wants to watch but just has to do, due to inescapable reasons.

What went wrong?

This article, points out the loopholes which students fall into unconsciously, and gives out what ought to be done when such a situation ever arises.

1. Wrong Company

This is the most common challenge each university student faces. Due to lack of a proper goal and vision on what brought you to that facility, any friend who pleases you will automatically find a way to sway you in another direction. Our sense of belonging

and acceptance to our peers leaves us vulnerable to the choices they make. A first year, in the beginning of the semester will desperately look for “cool” friends to hang out with and share their university experience with.

The problem with this is that most of this “so called friends” have a very shady background or even questionable character.

Going to parties with them and partaking in alcohol or even worse, drug taking, becomes their usual thing.

Soon enough most of their times are spent hanging out together and just passing time doing something that will never add value to the studies they do.

2. Goalless Ambitions

Being selected to pursue any course at any establishment may be a big step in one’s life but what happens when one has no particular desire on what they are selected to do? The motivation and self drive for excellence lacks and attending classes fully becomes a task. You don’t know why you were selected for that particular course or the interest in it is just not there. Units become tedious and hard and soon enough you start skipping classes. The situation

becomes worse when the whole semester comes to an end and the exams croach in. Because one did not put in the work to fully study and attend classes, dubious means to pass the exams are invented which can lead to expulsion.

3. Drugs and alcohol abuse

This is a common denominator to most students in any University. Due to the freedom that the establishment offers, partaking in excessive drinking in parties and leisure time, puts  young students’ mind in jeopardy. Drinking becomes a weekly thing then a daily thing and soon

enough, apart from addiction a lot of time ends up being wasted.

The situation becomes worse when a student is involved in drug abuse. Getting high, disrupts the normal discernment of any student leading to poor grades and even discontinuing of the course. It might be cool at that moment and people may regard you socially upfit but what is the price of that? Depression creeps in due to dependency and financial problems start trickling in. Not all students are advatanged financially hence, dependency can lead to other crises like theft or even joining of gangs. All this destroys a future potential lawyer, nurse, musician, artist or even chef.

There is no course at any university/college that states the necessity of partaking in drug abuse to enhance performance infact the opposite is always bound to happen. So think twice, thrive and ask yourself what would be the need of it.

4. Laziness

Not all factors are external, a person’s personal character greatly influences their level of success or even how far they are willing to achieve during the time that they are in that facility. Being a sloth is disastrous to any student. A university /college is no place for lazy students. Most of the units any student studies requires them to put in all the hard work required to get that pass. Assignments, CATs and even classes themselves require  dedication and an ambitious mind to succeed. Laziness brings about procrastination and shady work being done due to the lack time put in.

Lecturers would require excellence in projects done and also assignments that are due. A lot of deadlines will be put in place and a lazy student will work with last minute schedules,which,honestly, never brings about the standard of work which lectures crave.

5. Mediocritiness in planning.

Poor planning gives poor performance. You may have high hopes and expectations to achieve that first class honors but what most people lack is the ability to really plan themselves on how they will achieve their goal. Students will spend more of their time on units which seem “easier” to them and neglect the ones which actually require work to be done. You end up passing in easy units which honestly don’t earn you enough points or credit to venture on your career. Some courses have IT units and coding programmes, juggling the practicals and theory requires one to balance their time well. Students will deposit most of their intellect on what pleases them most and even forget some units ever existed in their academic year.

Poor planning also involves balancing one’s personal life and academic track record. A person gets so involved in one that the other becomes a course of their downfall. You may get too involved on what is happening around you that you loose track of even the lectures that happen or get too involved in your academics that your health deteriorates, affecting your studies.

This are the major loopholes which students fall into unconsciously, but with the following

‘guides’, the loopholes can only be your foot stone to success :

• Seek friends with vision

The classic adage, “show me your friends……”

Well, we know how it ends, is a wake up call towards all students to carefully choose the people who you want to walk with at the University life. Choose people who have the same ambitions with you, students with values of hardwork in them and those who won’t hesitate to even correct you.

A collective group energy is so significant in one’s university life because it will take you places and give you energy in times of weakness.

In life, it’s better to have one friend who values your success than many who pretend to be on your side loving you. Fitting in isn’t a necessity in school, infact having so many friends beside you only increases the chances of you having multiple empty commitments.

Reduce the burden and have people who will even correct you when you head the wrong way. How else will you know that your friend is truly your friend?

• Put ambitious goals that scare you

knowing what brought you to that institution of higher learning isn’t just enough, you have to write them down on pen and paper.

Due to our technological age, putting them in a form of a reminder in your smartphone every morning when you wake up, will give you a huge advantage for you will never loose sight of where you are headed and apart from that it will give you that motivation even when things get tough.

Have a serious meeting with yourself and align your goals to what you love most about your career.

Ensure your goals are always in line with the course you are doing, from setting up deadlines of assignments to writing down the grades you want to achieve in each unit. Wake up each morning, look at this goals and conquer them one day at a time.

If your dreams don’t scare you, trust me, they aren’t big enough yet.

• The power of No

No amount of drugs or even alcohol will bring you to excellence in your studies. Build your self~esteem to be so strong that you won’t be swayed in this crisis of drugs that seems to swallow whole potential and really bright students. Have positive activities to do during your free time, in fact finding physical activities to indulge in will always give you that natural dopamine to keep you going even during tough times.

Finding a short course to do in line with what you are learning is of even greater help. A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.

Build a strong character in you that people would admire emulating.

Let the focus in you be strong enough to know what you want in your life and don’t let the pleasure of the drugs or alcohol sway you towards risking loosing your career. Sometimes, if addiction is already a problem, it is never too late to seek help from trusted friends close to you or even professional help.

It’s better to risk your own ego to achieve help in order to build a strong and successful future.

• Work smart, hard and diligently

Cultivate a habit to always put in not just 100% but 110%.

Have a constant hunger in your studies and decide to settle for nothing less. Setting smart goals is a sure bet towards maintaining the discipline to work hard.

Seek the lectures attention, form group studies, stay a bit late [nothing good ever comes easy], to get A grade results, you should have an A grade strategy.

What students don’t know is, asking questions in class sessions goes a long way in boosting their performance. Doing as little as just asking ONE question in each lecture is enough.

It might be a challenge, but little by little, it will become a fruitful habit which will go a long way towards saving your career.

Never tier from working hard. Most students give up even before they start. If only you knew what lies at the end of the tunnel if discipline is checked, then you would never stop working hard.