It is hard to go fully into the semester. I know. All the reading, all the getting to know the professor. All the getting to know the other students. It is hard.
Especially if you are not socially gifted.
Believe me, I know.
However, the first month of the spring semester should be just about over. This is about the time that the first assignments are due. This can be a variety of assignments, a paper, a discussion post, a test. School does it all.
The only thing I can tell you is to have a plan for the assignments. Make a schedule if you are gifted like that. Or, if you are like me and write a schedule only to ignore it, write down the assignments everywhere. As discussed, part of my process is largely mental and I do a lot of thinking about structuring assignments. I have heard over and over to use an outline for written assignments. Yesterday I did and I wrote down what each section of the paper was to cover, and the broad strokes of the beginning and conclusion. Where has that nugget of wisdom been all my life?
We’ll see how far that gets me in the next three months.
It wouldn’t be the start of the semester assignment season without technical difficulties.
You are not alone in this. My computer got replaced for the second time over winter break. All the software had to be re-installed. Including the specialized software for statistics.
Oh, boy!
Take a deep breath and make a plan to conquer your first assignments. The first one, I find, is often the hardest to get started. After all, students, like us, are coming off a break where we did little to nothing to prepare for school. It might take a minute to get our brains in gear.
Start your assignments! The checkered flag has been raised!
Yeah, that is a veiled attempt at a NASCAR joke.
Humor me.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 