Let’s take a look at a past student. After struggling his first semester in college and getting a 2.6 grade point average, we laid out a plan for him to improve his grades. The first few steps involved setting goals around attendance, weekly work, project management, and other academic-related issues.
However, we also had to address and set goals in more than just academics. For this student to be successful, he needed to start to have better self-control and self-management. We set a goal for both wake up time and hours of sleep. We set goals around how many times he should be eating breakfast each week (now that he was awake), and we set goals around how many times, and when, he could exercise. For him, a high school who was pretty active, he needed to start engaging himself and creating a daily pattern that helped him be more functional, energetic, and alert.
In this case, the student was able to reach his goals in all areas. He felt better, he made more classes, and he was much more productive. He finished his second semester with a 3.55 GPA and these habits stuck for the rest of his college career.
When it comes to being an effective student, there is much more to it than just studying and time management. Diet, sleep, and exercise also play a part in how well students can function while at college.
When a student gets to college, it’s almost impossible for these 3 things to be the same as they were when the student lived at home. Most likely, they’re keeping much later hours, eating dorm or campus food, and not participating in the consistent sports and activities they had in high school. In terms of college, students don’t need to have perfect, or even great, diet, sleep, and exercise patterns. In many cases, that is unrealistic. But students do need to monitor, regulate, and manage these three things once they get to campus. Our coaches are trained to address and help students improve in these areas.