Observations of a 5-year student

When you hear the phrase “five-year student” you might be thinking that it took one year
longer than normal. While that is a reasonable assessment, a five-year student for me means, it
took me 5 years to complete about 2 years of school. This is because I completed my college
degree while being married, moving 3 times, working full-time, having three kiddos, and living
about 3-17 hours away from any family whatsoever. The reality is, I am not the only one doing
this. Many college students have done and are doing this very thing, with some variance in
situations to be sure. I would like to then, speak for a moment to the current college student or
soon-to-be college student and offer some observations that hopefully you can benefit from,
based on my experience.

1) Make time management your utmost priority. If I could go back and do one thing
differently it would be this. The reason is that if you can manage your time well, it affects
so many other areas. I know that because of my poor time-management that my wife
and children suffered. I know too that if I had managed my time better my assignments
would have been more thorough and thought out. This means, to the best of your
abilities, schedule out your time. Be disciplined. Put your phone away. Go to sleep when
you are in bed. Look ahead in your week and anticipate how you should spend your
time.

2) Know when to push back. I did my entire degree online. I lived in Kansas City, while
my school was located in Pennsylvania. I literally never stepped foot on campus until I
graduated. So that being said, my experience was never in a classroom setting. When
either a professor or student brought up an argument, point of view, or teaching that I felt
needed some push back I learned much later on, when was a good time to actually do it.
Typical of a young ignorant guy I responded to everything, pushed back on anything,
and moved quickly to defend myself. The truth is, I didn’t need to do that, nor do you.
You don’t have to push back on everything. I don’t have to fight every battle. You will
wear yourself and your professor out. You could file this under the old parental adage of
“pick your battles.” Eventually, I found the art of making my positions clear and concise
from the outset and graciously and selectively defended them.

3) Read more. For the sake of time, I often skimmed most books. To that end, I mostly
just read the textbooks and enough of it to complete the assignments. It wasn’t until my
last two semesters that I began reading the assigned reading in its entirety as well as
other external sources on the topic. This helped in my learning, as well as the class as a
whole. Academic books, fictional, non-fictional, biographies, blogs, articles, and so on
are all chalked full of deep knowledge and worthwhile insight. My love for books has
increased with my love of learning. Pick up listening to audiobooks, start with smaller
books, do e-books, whatever you need to do to read more. The benefits of getting to
know an author, story, or subject, far outweigh the satisfaction of appeasing your easily
distracted hands and eyes. Fall in love with books.
I am so thankful for the opportunity to have finished my degree. If you are reading this and are
trying to do that very thing, know that you can do it and that you are not alone. The proverbial
end of the tunnel is coming.