Today, I’m going to share 3 tips about what I do that has helped me succeed in my online coursework thus far.
#1: Schedule Time For the Class
It may seem odd scheduling time for a class that you attend online, but this has helped me so much when getting coursework done. At the bare minimum, I spend 3 hours a week doing the coursework. My goal is to touch a little bit on it each day. One of the first things they tell you when you get to college is for every credit hour, plan 2-3 times that amount for homework and readings. I would argue this is just as true for online courses.
As you can see from my sample schedule, I did some here and there where I could, rather than doing my coursework all at once. You may have also noticed that not all the time increments were the same. Some days, I would work for an hour at a time, other days it was closer to half an hour, or 45 minutes. This has really helped with reducing my stress levels, and making my life easier to manage.
#2: Break Down the Weekly Load
Every week, there would be an announcement going over what would be due during the week. Most of the time, there were 2 or more assignments due on Friday, and 2 or more assignments due on Sunday. Personally, I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing homework on the weekends, so I do my best to get it all done before Sunday. Even more importantly though, I believe spacing out the work and creating your own deadlines is helpful as well. For example, I would make sure that one assignment that’s due on Friday gets done by Wednesday, and an assignment for Sunday gets completed by Friday. This way I don’t have to worry about multiple assignments all due at the same time on the same day. That was stressful enough in a previous experience where I started to drown in the homework. I simply couldn’t keep up.
#3: Know Your Limits
Finally, I believe it’s important to set boundaries for yourself. If you know you won’t be able to focus after 7pm, please don’t attempt to do your homework after 7pm. In my case, I simply wanted the evenings to relax, so I created a rule for myself to finish all homework for the day by 6pm. If need be, rearrange your schedule to make it work. For example, I have 8am classes 3 days a week, but to be consistent, I get up at 5:45am every weekday anyway. The days where I don’t have 8am classes, I spend that extra 1.5 hours getting homework done so I don’t have to worry about it in the evening. Of course, this means I go to bed kind of early, too. I’m usually asleep by 9pm, sometimes 8:30. If you’ve gotta change your schedule to get your homework done, be sure to be flexible about it. Don’t take this as “I’ve gotta quit my job” or something if you’re working full-time. Maybe change your hours if that’s okay with you, or some other tactic.