Making the best of Semester Three

Semester three arrives very quickly and ends just as quick. You have to learn to be a bit more independent - scheduling your study sessions, having early starts despite not having lectures, it all becomes a game of discipline. For me, it became a reality check - it's not that I had everything figured out, but I knew what I didn't have figured out.

Academically, things get very real. Your lack of studying throughout the year come back to bite you, meaning you're spending 8 hours in the library of a day to redeem yourself. All of a sudden you're cramming 120 hours of content into 2 weeks of studying. But it's not the end of the world. You still have time, the situation isn't dire, and things can always turn themselves around. Because no matter what you try do, balancing everything in your life is impossible. Family time, societies, socialising, your own interests - it's all a bit hard to manage whilst excelling in your studies.

As I begin semester three, I have a lot of responsibilities - being part of a society, volunteering, and two exams in June. Exam preparation will be tiring, but building a routine and understanding my strengths and weaknesses makes the process much much easier.

And as you start semester three, don't forget there's other things in life aside from studying. You're allowed to take an evening off to go out and get some food with your friends, explore campus for a few hours, go on a hike, maintain your gym routine - all this is healthy, beneficial, good for you. If you want to excel in studies, you need to be in the right mental and physical state to do so - this all comes from doing activities outside of studying. With that said, don't forget at times it's also okay to turn off completely for a day, we're only human after all.