Fritter Finder Strategy

So far with my first month at college just about completed, I already know that my favorite part about college is having such freedom and an entire agenda for your day, built around you! I have 15 hours of class a week rather than the typical 30 hours of class a week that I had in high school. The other 153 hours of the week are up to me to choose what I would like to do.

The only problem about this is that there is so much free time, and I was not using it to my advantage during the first weeks of class. Most of my time that I had I was "frittering away." Then in CLS 105, we learned about the Fritter Finder Strategy. This strategy was incredibly helpful to me, and made me realize how much time I really had.

I wrote out my weekly schedule of classes, left space for the free time, and than highlighted the free time. This was very helpful in multiple ways. For example, I saw that on tuesdays I had so much free time, and I was done with class at 1:50. I know that later in the night, I will want to socialize and play basketball. So since I saw this chunk of free time, instead of putting it to waste, I decided to spend 2-3 hours on my homework, so that I have the stress completely off my back. I also added on the side of my schedule a handful of things that I could do with my free time. I put the schedule up on my bulletin board, and every time that I walk into my room, it reminds me of the free time that I have that needs to be put to good use.

It is pretty obvious that this is not the best strategy that we can learn for college, but that doesn't mean that is not extremely helpful. It can really help you put your time to good use. It is easy to get away from the homework and get caught up in all the different procrastinating ways. But if you try this strategy, and helps you make the best of each day.

Jeopardy Note-Taking Strategy

As a freshman at Syracuse University, I am very overwhelmed with all the work I have. The first few days of classes I had a difficult time paying attention. I found myself lost while writing notes, having no idea what to write down. I also felt like I wasn't going to use the notes I was taking until the day before a test. I didn't want to do what I always did and review my notes for the first time the day before an exam.

I was very excited to try a new note-taking strategy. The Jeopardy Note-Taking Strategy taught me to write my notes on the right-hand side of the page, leaving the left side empty for after class. After class, I would create test questions that I could answer directly from the notes across from them.

I started doing this everyday after class and started to understand the material I was learning as I learned it, instead of not understanding it until the day before a test.

However, when I studied for a test, I covered my notes and asked myself the test questions I created. I then uncovered the right side of the page to see if I knew the material.

This note-taking strategy definitely helps me stay on top of my work and understand the material I learn in class. I would recommend the Jeopardy method to other freshman at Syracuse.

D's Do and Due Organizer

Since classes have begun, I've felt the pressure and stress I've been hearing about for a while now. So I was more than happy to experiment for a week with the D's Do and Due Organzier. Task management has not been as big of an issue for me as actually just having the free time. As an art major, I have a couple of 4 hour long classes, making my schedule extremely difficult to create with reason. My week is packed with classes leaving me with evenings and weekends to have time to complete assignments and projects.

While doing the D's Do and Due, I found the Due side of the page extremely helpful in writing down when each assignment would be due for the next class. Almost none of my syllabi have the dates of when projects or assignments are to be handed in so I did have to write in this side as the week progressed.

However, the Do side of my calendar did not end up to be as successful. I found it very difficult to keep up with and because projects can go on for a while, the two sides could not match up accordingly. Overall, this was one of the more helpful methods and I will continue to use this organizer primarily for the Due side.