I’m back in college, this is actually my 3rd semester back, but I don’t talk about it often. It seems taboo like nobody cares when you’re 27 and you’re working your butt off to go back to school while juggling family life and work. It’s a lot to handle, this past month I’ve been stressing so much wondering what my workload would be like for 3 classes instead of 2 and 1 of the classes being the dreaded…math. Now that I’ve been back at school for 2 days I realized I was freaking out for nothing and hey, I’ve got this. Over the past 2 semesters, I’ve found the perfect balance between life, work, and my online classes. How do I do it? Here’s how I balance 2-3 classes in a school week, the best advice I can give you is the following.
Start with the easiest classes, work on one class at a time to completion, and finish all of your assigned tasks early in the week, every week.
The perfect part-time online college schedule for 2-3 classes
The typical online college schedule rolls out on Mondays, you have new assignments this might include; discussions, papers, quizzes, projects and more. I try to get a feeling for these classes and Monday first thing in the morning I start and finish my easiest class. Sometimes you have to wait for other students to post in discussions to reply, just make a note to do that later and move on.
Next, I go to my second hardest class and I normally get a good feeling of what’s expected of me for the week, if the first class didn’t take that long I’ll continue on to the next class. If my brain feels like it’s the consistency of Play-Doh I’ll resume my work tomorrow.
By Tuesday or Wednesday, my first courses are done and now on to my third class. This is my hard class and now I can focus on it. My other classes are done, out of sight and mind and I only have this one class to worry about now. Work on it until you can’t anymore, and resume later in the afternoon or finish up the next day. Even if you resume your homework on Thursday, you’re still done with a three day weekend and that school week wasn’t as bad.
This schedule isn’t as cut and dry, I’m a mom and I work on this website when I have a chance. I have a ton of interruptions, but I can still always finish my classes by Thursday, if I’m having a rough week or classes are taking longer I still have a Friday buffer and that still gives me a 2 day homework free weekend. 1
Other tips to help you succeed.
Required readings?
Snuggle on the couch or in bed, don’t stay at your desk, you’ll go nuts.
Required videos?
If it’s interesting gather the family around and watch together. I taught my daughter so much about storms during a natural disaster class this way, it was actually fun and teaching her helped me learn and remember more.
Brain turning to mush?
Step away, exercise, do a chore around the house. Hang with your kid, watch a tv show. Just step away, it’s the beauty of online college, you can take a break, and you can control how long the break is, just don’t make it a 2-day break.
Can’t finish your assigned task because your classmates are seriously procrastinating?
Move on, and make a note to come back for a few minutes after you’re done with all of your classes, or worst case scenario, log on for a few minutes on the weekend to reply to the discussions.
Written by, Brittany, the geek behind the blog. Sharing tips and stories from the trenches on navigating life homeschooling and homesteading as a stay at home mom.