When students leave behind the comfortable nest of home and high school to come to Kansas University, they have to take a major step forward in terms of being responsible for their own lives.

That’s especially true in regard to making choices about how they’ll manage their time in college.

Jordan Whitehill, a fifth-year pharmacy student from Wichita, uses the quiet environment at Anschutz Library to study for an exam. Students must budget their time to be successful in college.

There are no parents around anymore to hound students to do their homework or fulfill their responsibilities, and whether freshmen attend all their classes is ultimately up to them.

And, for most students, there are likely to be more tempting distractions from their schoolwork than they’ve ever had to resist before.

That’s why time management becomes so important to determining academic success or failure in college, according to KU’s Dean of Students Richard Johnson.

He has worked in student affairs for 15 years, spending nine years at the University of Vermont, six years at the University of Missouri-Columbia and the past year in his current position.

“The biggest mistake students make is procrastination. On a college campus, you can procrastinate by not going to class or waiting till the night before you’re supposed to have them finished to read two (course) books,” Johnson said.

It’s not the responsibility of professors to follow their students around, making sure they’re getting their work done.

“Students have to take responsibility for their schedules and their learning,” Johnson added. “And we at the university have to provide them with the tools to be successful.”

Johnson offered some advice on time management techniques for first-time students at KU.

It’s a good idea, he said, to plan a balanced class schedule with some courses in the morning and some in the afternoon.

That’s because having, say, three courses scheduled one after the other is tough on a student’s ability to retain the material.

“To go three hours in a row, it’s hard for the brain to comprehend that last hour,” Johnson said.

Another tip is for students to study the most difficult or boring subjects first.

“Being human, what we tend to do is put the most difficult (material) last, and by the time we get there, our energy level has gone down,” Johnson said.

It’s more productive to tackle the hard subjects first, when students are more alert and can better comprehend what they’re working on.

He advised against the tactic of study marathons or all-nighters as a way to get work done.

“Study in two-hour blocks, then take a break for a half hour or 45 minutes. You could also switch subjects after a two-hour block. If you continue to study the same thing, your mind will begin to wander,” Johnson said.

Seeing the big picture

Johnson’s next time-management tip seems like mere common sense, but many students fail to make use of it.

“Go through your calendar and mark when you have all your classes, exams, papers and assignments (due), so you know when everything’s coming up,” Johnson said.

“Then go through it and see when your commitments are if you’re in a club or organization. Mark those down on your calendar. That will help to schedule your time.”

Using a personal calendar this way can help to give students a view of the big picture, so they can see how the whole semester pans out.

One surprise is that studies show that college students who also have a job are typically more successful in school, according to Johnson.

Maintaining a job that requires 10 to 15 hours of time per week can actually make college students more productive.

The reason is that having a job forces students to prioritize tasks and balance their activities better than they would if they had big, open blocks of free time.

Another good time-management technique is learning how to say “no” to the many distractions of college life.

“I always loved living in a residence hall, because I knew that no matter what time it was, I could always find somebody to do what I wanted to do go out to eat or see a movie,” Johnson said.

“I have to know that as much as I want to see ‘Spider-Man,’ I may have to say ‘no’ on a particular night. It might be fun to go to the (Kansas) Union, but you have to manage your time.”