Keep On Track: Take Your Time Charting Your Course

It's not always easy to know what your next move is in terms of your degree.

Identifying which courses you should take each semester without proper guidance is difficult. If you don't keep track of your credits, you can end up taking courses that aren't requirements for your degree program.

Even though we're not on campus right now, it's still crucial to make regular meetings with your academic advisor. They will help ensure that you are staying on the right track. There are also ways for you to check for yourself where you are in your degree.

Planning and visualizing

Up until a month ago, I wasn't even sure how many years I had left to complete my bachelor's degree.

It wasn't until a friend and fellow student helped me sort through the courses I had taken that I realized how far into my degree I was.

When I sorted through my progress so far, I was able to conceptualize a plan for the next two years of my education and everything felt a bit less hectic.

If you haven't already, you should pull up the calendar for your department. Next, download an unofficial transcript from my.mun.ca, and start comparing the courses you have completed with the requirements for your degree.

If you need help, contact the academic advisor for your department and set up a meeting.

Sharing good advice

During my first three years at Memorial University, I did not plan out my educational future in detail.

I am now closing in on the end of my third year as a Memorial student. I finally took the initiative to sort through my courses. This cemented in my mind that I am entrenched in, and well on my way to finishing, my degree.

This advice is especially essential to undergraduates like me. Despite having attended courses at Memorial for the past few years, I still manage to overlook some of the more obvious indications of what I should be doing to make my life easier as a student.

I can guarantee that having a feasible plan of how the next few years of your life will play out will make attending university less stressful for you.

Especially if, like me, you feel the stress and anticipation of having to decide which courses you need to take the following semester long before class sign-ups have even begun.

Organization is key

Tangibly keeping track of your degree is necessary for ensuring that you graduate on time.

It is up to you to make sure that the courses you take will help you graduate and to seek out help from academic advisors.

With the way things are now in the world, it is safe to say that we are all suffering from additional stress. I hope my testimony will convince you to organize yourself a bit.

For the temporary inconvenience of time, sorting through the nuances of your degree now will relieve a lot of potential stress in the long run.

This article was written for the MUN Gazette by Hayley Whelan, a third-year bachelor of science (psychology) student at Memorial University.