Hello incoming first year students!! My name is Josh and, as a survivor of first year and writer for the Iron Warrior, I’m taking the opportunity to start a column helping you deal with this gigantic gap in lifestyle and academics between high school and first year. (A gap which is only getting wider.) With that, I hope to continue offering suggestions and advice in this column that will either be psychological/biological facts, in addition to general advice with help from other upper year students.
In the title, perseverance represents a course of tenacity and continued efforts despite difficulty or setbacks. A large part of persevering is psychological; overcoming discouragement or procrastination. This is the part that “gets you through first year.” Sleep is also a general measure of how well you manage yourself (i.e. when you sleep) and manage your health (how long/well you sleep); this is the “unscathed” part of living at school.
Without further ado, let us dive into this week’s content.
Join some kind of something
School is stressful. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a couple hours each week to forget all of that stress and simply enjoy ourselves? Countless first years find refuge and sheer joy in clubs, intramurals, or design teams. These activities also promote interacting with students across campus and mental sanity.
Furthermore, a study of 1500 people in the Netherlands found that vacationers were most happy pre-trip; the anticipation of their upcoming vacations enhanced their everyday life. Having that interest you genuinely look forward to will make everything in first year more tolerable.
If you’re worried about the workload when school starts, and are therefore hesitant to take that risk, let me tell you that the amount of work only rises from here. If you join something now and cherish it wholeheartedly, you’ll learn to schedule around it and adjust. Later, the inertia and fear of joining a new club will make it much more difficult to enter what will then be a foreign environment. It is better to join said club early in the year as you will be surrounded by other newcomers.
Have a good first weekend…with your assignments
Okay, after orientation and settling down, let’s talk about school. Aside from your special design courses (unique to each discipline), first year is a full mix of general physics, chemistry, calculus, linear algebra, etc… You know the drill by now: three 50min lectures a week with the professor, one 2 hour tutorial with a TA and an assignment/problem set due over the week. One week’s assignment is not due until the week after, but I strongly recommend you complete assignments the week or weekend it is assigned for two simple reasons:
1. Most assignments should only take a few hours but some will take longer than anticipated, which is why completing them over the weekend—with more free time and buffer—is a safer bet.
2. The famous Ebbinghaus curve states that half of new information (without any review) is lost within a day, and after a week you’re left with a mere quarter. Next week your nights should be spent on the material taught next week (while it is still fresh). If you leave your previous week’s assignment undone you’re not reviewing anything useful, but rather being confused back and forth. This is why it is crucial to have a good start and first weekend by staying ahead of your assignments.
Take your shirt off! (Tips to staying awake.)
In this final and perhaps most practical section, I introduce to you alternatives to coffee:
Wear fewer clothes: you sleep under a blanket because of something biologists call Cutaneous (skin) warming that promotes sleep onset. You may not notice how sitting in your first year classroom slowly heats your body until you start yawning. At this point, whip off your sweater or thick jacket (make sure you’re wearing something underneath) and instantly cool your skin’s temperature. This is similar to the ice bucket effect of keeping you alert.
Drink Tea: tea is a cheaper, healthier alternative to coffee. And yes, there is caffeine in it, about 50mg in a cup of black tea compared to 100mg in coffee. It may take longer for tea to take effect, but rest assured that the effect is real.
Sleep: Humans have different sleep schedules. It helps to keep track of your own in writing and maintain consistency. Chances are you’re still not sleeping enough, which is why you need so much caffeine.
Drink Coffee: Caffeine is a miracle drug if you absolutely need it immediately to get through the next important lecture. I provide alternatives because of health and because of crashing/after effects. Also, since you adapt to coffee over time, it might not be a bad idea to avoid getting a tolerance; mix up your methods to really reap coffee’s effects come 4th year.
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