the air

As the month of June gets underway, more and more college students and high school graduates are on summer vacation. Some of them may have internships/jobs lined up while others may have nothing planned. This would be a great time to go and register yourself for summer school.

Summer school is fun

Contrary to popular belief, summer school can be lots of fun, no matter what course you are taking. For starters, most summer courses - I am referring to college courses throughout this post - are actually not very large and you have the unique opportunity to interact with the professor on a more personal level. From my experience, summer courses allow you to meet with other students who share your passion for doing well in school. The best part about summer school is the relaxed atmosphere many professors encourage compared to taking the same course during the school year.

Summer school is not that much harder

Unlike the normal school semester which is approximately 18 weeks long, summer school sessions generally last around 8 or 9 weeks. In that time, it is the responsibility of the professor to impart upon you instruction that is equivalent to 18 weeks’ worth of information in just half the time. Understandably, many students cringe at the possible assertion that summer school is much harder than if you were to take the course during the normal school year. However, taking a course during summer is not that much harder than if you were to take it during the normal school year, if that even. Normally, summer courses are longer and you have to study more than you may be used to. During that time, though, you are not concerned about other courses. In fact, many students only take one summer course and find that the course usually lasts for about 2 - 4 hours a day with the remaining time left to study. With that amount of free time, you can easily accomplish what you need to do and study ahead while having plenty of time for a social life.

Summer at school can be boring

If you attend college in a rural setting such as Purdue University, Northern Illinois University, etc. you will be surprised to know that college life is now boring. Many of the students are no longer on campus or even in the same area. Hence, you will realize that you cannot always hang out every day and there will be days where you will be extremely bored. When I took my summer courses at Purdue, they were extremely fun but the after-school life was quite sedantary since many of my friends were not on campus. As such, I spent my little free time (most of it was spent doing homework and studying) watching movies, listening to music, reading novels, or simply socializing with my classmates.

The main thing to remember with summer school is that it is a great way to get ahead and catch up. If you did not do well in your course this past semester, see if it is offered this summer. If it is, register for it and take it again. Getting ahead during summer school can help you graduate sooner or it could mean taking fewer courses in your last semester. In addition, summer school is a great way to utilize your summer productively. So what are your plans for the summer?

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For some people, Sunday is a very dreadful day since it marks the end of the weekend and the need to sleep early so that one can get up early for work the next morning. You wouldn’t believe how many people waste their Sundays simply loafing around and watching TV or taking naps. Maybe that person is you? I know I am guilty of wasting an entire Sunday doing nothing but just aimlessly browsing the web or watching pointless sitcoms, infomercials, or movies on TV. This is where I propose that all of you, myself included, should get up and make the most of the last day of the weekend.

Go Outside

Now that summer is here, maximize your time by exercising. For most of us in the northern hemisphere, the weather is improving and more and more people can be seen outside. This is a great time to just go for a walk around the neighborhood or visit your nearest park. So what if you’re a college student, go out and do something. Just today, I went for a short walk in my neighborhood and by the time I came back, I felt full of energy.

Take Care of Those Pesky Bills

My dad is extremely lazy on Sundays. He squanders the time by taking naps or just watching TV and does not pay any attention to the bills that are piling up throughout the week. Nowadays, after some convincing, he sits down for about an hour and pays all the bills that have accumulated for the past week. Not surprisingly, he is able to manage his money much more efficiently and does not need to worry about late payments. As a college student, my last bills are all due within the next two weeks, but since I got them out of the way now, I don’t have to worry about them for the rest of the time.

Have a Blog? Write!

Do you have a blog? Why not spend some time and write a quick post? I’m writing this around 6:30 PM CST and instead of watching TV with the rest of my family, I figured this was a great time to go ahead and write a post. You should already be aware that when you have a blog, you need to continually update it with fresh content otherwise your blog will disappear into oblivion. Why not use the free time you have to write a quick post. Many times, if you have a personal blog, you don’t need a specific or a great topic to make a post. Just write because the more you write, the better you’ll be at it.

Read a Book or Pursue a Hobby

Do you have a hobby? Do you like to read? Both are great ways to use your time wisely. During the summer months, I make it a habit of reading a novel for at least one to two hours a night. If you notice on my sidebar, you’ll see the books I am currently reading. One of my hobbies is to work on Flash animation. Therefore, I spend my free time creating different animations or trying out new techniques. You’ll be surprised as to how many new things you will learn if you decide to pursue your hobby or even read a book. So go ahead and visit your local library and read.

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By no means is my vocabulary very high. In fact, most of my “advanced” vocabulary can be traced back to the days when I was studying for the old SAT’s which made use of those dreadful analogies. Just thinking about those analogies gives me shivers to this day.

The folks over at Houghton-Mifflin have posted an article that lists 100 essential vocabulary words that every high school graduate should know. I think this list should be mastered by everyone including all college students. Although I am familiar with many of the words on the list, there were about a dozen that I have absolutely no idea what they mean. You can bet that I’m going to study this list carefully and will have mastered using these words in my writing by the end of summer. Give it a shot and educate your brain.

I’ve also attached the document as a PDF Document.

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What are you willing to do for success?  Are you willing to fail for success?  Are you willing to give up everything for success?  How long are you willing to wait for success?  Are you willing to change for success?  Why do you want success?

The answers to the questions above might seem simple and obvious.  However, many folks will change their answers once they are on the path to success.  How do I know that?  It’s from my own observations and experience.  I know that many of us are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, but when the time comes to pay the price, most of us simply back out.  The key to success is with you!

If you are not realizing the success you want, it is probably because of you.  Many times, you have to change the way you think, the way you act, the way you execute your plan of actions, and more.  For example, how punctual are you?  If you say you will call someone back later, do you call them back later that day or later in the week?  Are you time punctual?  If you say you will meet someone at 3 PM, do you make sure you arrive a few minutes early at the very least or do you arrive a few minutes late?  Little things like these may not seem to matter much when you are in college, but you will be surprised as to how habitual this will be in your professional life.  You need to become more professional and more resilient with what you say and how you execute. 

Would you like to succeed 1000 times and fail once or would you like to fail 1000 times and succeed once?  Before you answer, carefully think about the question and your response.  If you would like to succeed 1000 times and fail once, you will always fail because if you are succeeding 1000 times, you will have no incentive to change your approach.  Hence, if you fail once, you will not understand why you failed when you were using the same formula for success.  If you fail 1000 times, it is likely that you are trying out new ways to find out success and continually changing your strategy.  Therefore, once you find your success, it is likely that you will continue to alter your strategy to continue the success and you’ll know 1000 ways on how to fail.  Sure there are general exceptions and room for arguments, but you get the idea.

No matter what anyone says, the bottom line is that success begins with you.  Only you can do what is necessary to realize success.  If you don’t change things about you or what you are doing, you cannot accomplish success.  Remember, the world is a highly dynamic place.  That means, the world is continually changing and you have to change to keep up.  You cannot expect the same method to work always and therefore, you cannot expect success with no change.  So go ahead and dare yourself to change and evolve. 

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Many of my friends have often asked how I am able to earn the grades I want every semester and make it look extremely easy.  I am flattered that others look to me for help with their own grades, but I should point out that it isn’t easy for me either.  For the past three semesters at Northern Illinois University, I spent countless hours studying and completing assignments with precision and dedication.  In retrospect, I feel confident in outlining the three things that really cause me to realize my potential and experience the results I want.

It may come as a surprise, but the only three words that really motivate me and cause me to push ahead are:

• Goals
• Perseverance
• Sacrifice

I am sure that many people in your life have told you the importance of making goals.  Goals serve purely as an end-point which you can use as a benchmark to measure your progress.  Without goals, we are aimlessly moving about our life and cannot measure our progress.  In fact, I strongly believe that you, like every human, already have set your own goals whether you realize it or not.  Hence, all you have to do now is simply identify your goals and measure success.  The process of identifying goals or how to develop goals will be left to other sites and maybe a later post.  But I cannot stress to you how important it is to have goals and how I use these goals to measure my own progress.

Once I know what my goals are, I work hard to ensure that I reach them.  I respect commitments and deadlines and do not tolerate incompetence or laziness.  I admit that there numerous times throughout a semester when I am lazy, however, regardless of what happens, I always make sure that I finish the task by the time it is due.  This ties into my next point, which is sacrifice. 

Sacrifice is another key component that has helped me to realize my own success.  Sacrifice encompasses giving up those things or persons that hinder or impede your progress.  Some will argue that sacrifice is a harsh term or is unnecessary.  However, when I set out to accomplish a goal, my only concern is to accomplish that goal.  If that means I have to not attend any parties, help friends out, or even blog, then I will do just that.  To me, if I cannot accomplish a goal, then I have not realized my success and must set out to analyze what went wrong.  It becomes pertinent to me to avoid the hassles of figuring out why I could not accomplish a goal.  Therefore, I will sacrifice whatever is necessary to accomplish my goals.  Do not mistake my tendency to sacrifice with inattentiveness to the other essential parts of life.  Occasionally, some goals are just not worth the price and therefore not worth accomplishing.  But if that is the case, then there must be another way to go ahead and accomplish it with a much lower price tag.

The moral is that success is not easy.  It takes time and it takes effort.  I know many people out there who do not understand the true concept of success.  They are unable to or are unwilling to do what is necessary to realize success.

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