I’m very excited to announce that on Wednesday I start college again! After so long away I am so happy to be going back. I am hoping that by the end of 2017 I will FINALLY have my degree, so everyone cross your fingers that this semester will go well!

Before every semester for as long as I can remember, I always take a day or two, sometimes even three to prepare myself for school. Since I know a lot of other people are going back to college around this time, I thought I would share my back to school prepping ritual. It does vary from semester to semester, but it mostly stays the same. So here is how I prep for going back to school!

1- The first thing I do is plan out my book bag and school supplies. I make sure that the bag I choose will be able to hold everything I need, is comfortable on my shoulder, and that if I should forget it anywhere, it would be easy for me to identify. Going along with that, I plan my pen pouch, filling it with pens, a highlighter, my school ID, post-its, flag tags, and a flashdrive to keep all my homework for the semester on. I only use one flashdrive during the semester so I know exactly where all my work is. I also make sure to have my planner ready to go and I plan my notebooks and folders to match so I know what notebooks and folders go to what subject. If I have a binder, I separate my subjects using different colored dividers. I find color coding my subjects really helps me know what I need for what classes.

2- I make sure to buy my books before the first day of classes if they’re available because trying to purchase books on the first day of class is a nightmare! I did have one semester where my books didn’t come in until the first day and I had to buy them that day and I hated it because it made things that much more stressful. This semester I don’t have nay books I need to purchase, so I got to skip this step.

3- I plan out my outfit a night or two before school starts. Sometimes I’ll even plan out my outfits for the first week of school depending on how many days I have classes during the week. I find doing this saves me the time and hassle of tearing apart my closet my first day and this also lets me know if I have to do laundry or not. Knowing what you want to wear and having it available to you really helps keep you organized and minimizes back to school stress. This also when you’ll want to decide on your accessories, make-up and hair, etc. Trust me, this really saves on time during the school week where your focus will be needed elsewhere.

4- I make sure my phone is fully charged because you never know when an emergency might happen or when you might need to add something into your phone’s calendar. I personally don’t put things on my phone calendar because I have a physical planner that I prefer using because I can color code it and I don’t have to worry about technical glitches with it, but I know everyone is different in their scheduling methods!

5- I always try to make sure I have a drink and a small snack I can take with me just in case I need something small to get me through my first day. If I can’t find anything at home, I make sure to take some money with me so I can get things from the vending machine or the student union. Nothing is worse than being hungry during the school day!

6- The last thing I do is copy down my course schedule. I copy down the name of the class, the time it starts, and the building and room the class is being held in. I do this so I can plan on getting there at least 10-15 minutes early just in case any last minute changes have been made. I’ve had a few semesters where at the last minute the location of the class was changed, so I feel getting there early helps just in case this happens. If it doesn’t happen, then at least I know I don’t have to worry about being late!

So this is my preparation system for staring a new semester. To anyone else who is going back this semester as well, how do you prepare for a new semester? And for anyone is isn’t going back to school, do you have a preparation system for your work days? I would love to know how everyone gets prepared!

To anyone going back to school this semester, I wish you a great and awesome semester!