Rejuvenating and Starting Second Semester Strong

As many teachers, students and parents know, this past semester completing school online has been extremely difficult for some students. As for other students, online school has been more convenient and a more efficient way of learning. I am well aware that not many students were very ecstatic about receiving their first semester report cards in the mail. I wasn’t too excited myself, although I’m sure that everyone is somewhat happy to be over and done with the first semester and on to the last semester of this school year.

This pandemic has caused many problems that teenagers, and anyone in general, should never have to go through in their lifetime. Though, there is always an upside to every situation. The upside to this situation is that the teenagers at Preuss have me to help them reconstruct and refresh their minds to help them focus during this brand new semester.

The first step to preparing for the second half of the school year, is to relax. One of the most relaxing ways to wind down is by simply listening to music. There are different music genres for anyone to listen to. Some people might just need some slow and quiet music to relax; others might need loud, hype music to get them motivated, whatever works for you. There are a few playlists of good relaxing music, or any genre of music really, on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music.

The next step to preparing for the next semester is to pick some fun things to do that will get your mind to wind down. Here are just a few ideas: having a self care/spa day, doing arts and crafts with friends and family even just reading a book or maybe watching an interesting documentary.

Recovering from the 1st semester and preparing for the 2nd doesn’t just mean relaxing and forgetting about your actual classes. A few things that could be done to mentally and physically prepare for the second semester are making sure to clean out emails, delete any emails from last semester, turn in all missing assignments from last year on Google classroom, just to clear out the “Missing Assignments” tab and also organize your google drive and any school work apps. Doing these simple tasks makes it so much easier, and also motivates people to want to succeed in school.

There are so many fun ways to keep apps and schoolwork organized. Google drive folders can be color-coordinated, on iPhone, you can add widgets and make the homescreen look fun but also convenient. Most laptops have a feature where a theme can be added to the tabs. Some people do like to keep their school work plain and serious, but maybe a little color won’t hurt.

Something that many students were struggling with during the first semester was turning in assignments on time and attending classes. Now, I know that the iPhone has a reminder app pre-installed, but there are also thousands of homework, reminder and scheduling apps. I struggle with time management myself, and I’ve discovered and thought of so many ways to keep myself in-check. One way to make sure that you stay on top of your work, is by keeping track of how many assignments you have missed, and how many classes you missed or were late to. I usually stay on top of my work by keeping a planner and writing in it every day. I also have to make sure that I check it pretty often. I also set many reminders on my phone, because I use my phone often. I set reminders to go to class, to turn in assignments and some reminders to remind me to do work.

Some people need other ways of staying on track. You can give yourself a set amount of time to play games, or watch tv and for every missing assignment or tardy that you have, you get a certain amount of time taken away from your free time. For example, you have two hours to play video games, but you have 2 missing assignments that you need to finish. For every missing assignment, 20 minutes is taken from the video game time, so you’re left with 1 hour and 20 minutes to play video games. That’s just one way I’ve thought about, but there are tons of other ways.

To those Preuss students who are seriously struggling with academic goals, everything you accomplish now, all your achievements, all your hard work and perseverance WILL pay off one day. The best of luck for this semester, we’re nearing the end of this school year and we all want to make the best of this dreadful pandemic.