By After graduating high school in 2021 with high honors I believed myself resilient, an enthusiastic teenager ready to pursue higher education despite having no guidance from my parents.
My parents brought me up to be independent and passed on to me a strong work ethic. I always believed that this was all I needed to succeed. So when the cap and gown came off and the recognitions became a memory I would have to continue living up to, I came to the cruel realization that for my first year of college, I would constantly be uninformed and behind.
It took me a year to decipher a system that would help me navigate my courses for an easygoing semester. My system cannot guarantee straight A’s or endless peace, but it promotes organization.
College schedules can go from seemingly easy-going to chaotic in a day. I recommend always staying a week ahead in assigned readings and even assignments if you can. This might only work if your professors post the syllabus before the semester starts, but even if they do not post it until the first day of class this could still work if you ever find extra time or the will to get two weeks worth of work done in one week.
Staying a week ahead can give you a safety cushion if you ever find yourself juggling a heavy workload. Giving yourself extra time to work on assignments also reduces stress and possibly rushing to turn in something that is not your best material.
I am surprised every time I learn someone does not own a planner because mine is an essential. Invest time into your planner if you want it to work for you. You will also need a pack of highlighters and three pens; black, red and blue.
Assign each of your classes a different highlighter.
Once you have access to your syllabus, transcribe every assignment, test etc. to your planner.
Highlight the course names and list the assigned work below them.
Use black for all work relating to your courses.
Use red to mark you have completed an assignment.
Use blue for any school events, job and internship reminders or anything important that you want to stand out.
Marvin Estevez is a fourth-year electrical engineering major at Long Beach State, who as a first-gen student, had to decipher the higher education system on his own. Having no guidance from his parents when it came to pursuing a college degree, he described his transition from high school into college as “a path where you’re stepping into the unknown.”
He remembers feeling lost his first year on campus in part because he had no knowledge of certain terminology like general education requirements, credits and units.
“There’s so much, it’s just a new world. It’s like, it has its own language too. You just have to be able to learn that language,” Estevez said.
I think most first-gen students, especially those who are receiving financial aid, can agree that graduating within 4 years is one of our goals.
Some advice from Estevez is to find a good support system, which can sometimes be a difficult task. He goes to his advisors for questions about his schedule and graduation; but for other topics he finds that professors are usually willing to help or guide you to someone else who can.
“They really help you stay on track, when I think the goal of the university is, like, keep you here as long as they can,” Estevez said. “I don’t want to say all the advisors, but generally a lot of the advisors, they steer you away from the four year plan they usually have for you.”
Estevez has found planners to be an effective organizational tool as well. In his first year, he used only one large planner, but by the following year, he learned that having an additional one on his phone was better because he checks it more often.
Now he has two planners: a small one to write and check off his goals and reminders each week and an app called Structured, where he keeps track of his schedule and receives reminders of upcoming deadlines through notifications.
As a first-gen college student, you are solely in charge of your success, so learning organization and time management skills is imperative.
