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Students How 2
A newsletter for you: The college student that wants to learn how to do
everything better, easier or cheaper.

In This Issue:

How to succeed in college

How to get through a

boring assignment

How to create an effective

skincare routine

Mac, a student at East Carolina University, doing some homework before the start of class

How to get through a boring assignment

By: Matthew Ordonez

W e have all been there. Staring at a screen trying

your hardest to focus on what feels like the least
appealing, and most boring homework you have ever
been assigned. There are so many distractions and
so many other things you could be doing right now.
The reality is this work must be done and, the sooner
you finish, the sooner you can move on to other
things you want to do or at the very least some other
homework that interests you. All college students go
through this struggle at least once during their time
at a university. Hopefully, this article will help you to
avoid procrastination and missing due dates, so you
do not hurt your grade.
Motivation
One of the hardest parts of completing a boring
assignment is staying motivated. When you are not
motivated to finish an assignment, it is easy to be
distracted and it feels like you are wasting time.
There are many ways that different people stay moti-
vated. Christina Mahon has a bachelor in social work
with a minor in Hispanic studies from East Carolina
University and is currently working on her master’s
degree in social work at UNC Wilmington.
She graduated college with a 3.8 GPA and has
“always had a heavy workload.”
She kept a weekly planner of every assignment she
had due throughout the semester and when she saw a
boring assignment coming up, she would always get
it out of the way early.
“I know I’ll have more motivation to do boring
work if I do it before anything else,” says Mahon. “I
always do the hard stuff first.”
A big part of staying motivated for her was not
wasting too much time on a boring assignment.
“It is about time management for me,” she said.
“Sometimes I’ll just stick it out because if I don’t, it
will take longer and make me more miserable.”
Mahon also mentioned the importance of a
“quiet place without distractions” and that “taking
a small break” is alright as long as you “come right
back to do the rest.”
Stay organized
Caroline Kearns is a college graduate with a
bachelor of science in business administration
with a concentration in management from East
Carolina University. She currently works as a talent
acquisition coordinator at a financial software
company. She graduated college with a 3.5 GPA
and is a big advocate of staying organized.
Kearns used her organization skills to make sure
she stayed on top of her boring assignments in col-
lege. She used a color coding system in her planner
to keep her motivated. “Red meant incomplete and
green meant ready to turn in,” Kearns said. “The
more green I saw, the more accomplished I felt.”
Time management is also important for Kearns.
“I don’t procrastinate so when it comes time to
turn an assignment in, I’m not lost and scram-
bled,” she said.
Lastly, Kearns told me the method she used to
stay on track when it came to lengthier assign-
ments. “I would figure out the due date and how
much I had to write each day to complete the
assignment on time,” she said. “I would submit a
rough draft to the instructor to make sure I was
where I needed to be.”
Stay driven
What we see from Kearns and Mahon despite
their different methods to stay on top of things
is that they are driven. Whether it is for good
grades or to just be done with the work, they
stayed driven and focused on their goals. Even if
you are a student who does not care about school
and just wants to reach the end, you decide
whether you are driven to accomplish your goals
or not. That will always be the most important
part of getting through a boring assignment.
Some students may need to do their work in
a library study room to eliminate distractions.
Some may just need some coffee or an energy
drink. Everyone is different, but everyone is capa-
ble of being a good student if they try.
P. 1
 How to succeed in college
By: Hayden Beswetherick
Aaron Carey, using a planner to stay organized on his tasks throughout the week
Graduating college is a success. The college
dropout rate in the United States on average
is 40% and in public universities, the average
is higher at a 50% dropout rate, according to
thinkimpact.com.
“In 2019, student veterans had an average
GPA of 3.39,” according to PNPI, The Postsec-
ondary National Policy Institute. “In 2015, vet-
eran students had a 54% completion rate, which
was similar to the overall national average of
53% and higher than the 39% completion rate
of other adult learners.”
This article is about how to apply skills
learned through the military, ROTC, and ev-
eryday life to help you navigate through college.
In hopes of lowering the national dropout
rate. These are firsthand accounts of how some
ROTC cadets have applied these skills to college
life and what has been beneficial to their college
success.
Time management
The paramount skill for success in life and
college is time management. This skill is used
throughout college. Planning is a way that Luke
Schulze, a cadet at East Carolina University
Army ROTC, utilizes time management. He
says that time management and using a planner
has been paramount in his success in college.
“I use a planner, I never used a planner before,
in high school,” says Schulze. Using time
management gives him time to plan for leisure
activities and working out.
The method for time management that I
utilize and that has helped me is backwards
planning. Backwards planning is taught in
ROTC and is where I learned how to efficiently
plan. The framework used for this method is
called the T-Week framework.
“The T-Week framework aligns the weeks
before and after each training event to required
actions or activities to plan and prepare. As
an example, ‘Week T’ is the week of execution
for an event. “Week T-6” is six weeks before
execution. “Week T+1” is the week after the
event. Units develop and tailor their T-Week
calendar based on unit and local installation
requirements,” according to the United States
Army Website. Utilizing this method makes me
forget fewer tasks that need to be done.
“I start with Friday and work my way back to
Monday,” says Aaron Carey an ROTC cadet at
East Carolina University.
He learned this method of planning in ROTC
and has implemented it to be better prepared
for schoolwork. Schulze has also incorporated
backwards planning in his life, he utilizes it to
prioritize assignments.
Troop Leading Procedures are also a useful
tool that ROTC teaches. It is an 8-step process
that starts with receiving the mission, and ends
with supervising and refining. These proce-
dures are used to plan for operations in the
United States Army. The TLPs, however, can be
adapted to the civilian side.
“When working on group projects, I use most
or all the TLPs to organize and create a plan
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for the projects. This helps me stay on track to
create a plan, send out what needs to be done
by who, and if anything needs to be refined,”
says Carey.
TLPs will help in freeing up time, by giving
a methodology to planning which makes
planning more systematic and efficient. Incor-
porating TLPs allows you to have more time
for a social life and get time to de-stress. If you
plan, you will find previously lost time, that will
allow you to do leisure activities. Schulze likes
planning time in the day and week for leisure
activities, helping him decompress from his
college workload.
Find a community
The key attribute for success in college is
“having a foundation,” says Schulze.
Schulze considered dropping out of college
in his sophomore semester. The reason that he
did not quit was the foundation and structure
around him. Having friends, family, peers, and
mentors helped Schulze get back to his mindset
at the beginning of college.
Structure and support are the second steps to
having a successful college life. Carey says that
without his foundation of primarily ROTC, he
would have dropped out of college.
He said, “I stayed because of ROTC and
family advice.”
Find a group of friends that support you and
stick with them. When you’re contemplating
missing an assignment, an event or even
dropping out of college, lean on this group of
people.
Without family, both Carey and Schulze
would’ve dropped out of college. Carey and
Schulze have found their community with
ROTC, now it’s your time to find what commu-
nity you want in college to succeed.
p. 2
How to create an effective skincare routine
By: Whit Hanvey
College girl washing her face first thing in the morning in order to improve skincare
Trying to maintain a good skincare routine can
be hard especially as a college student when you
are always on the go. You might think you don’t
have the time to have a skincare routine but
creating a skincare routine is a lot simpler than
you think.
It is important to create an easy everyday
skincare routine to keep your skin healthy,
moisturized and protected from the sun. Linda
Carrigan, who is a medical assistant for Raleigh
Plastic Surgery, explains that you don’t need
to spend a lot of time or money on skincare;
you just need the basics and to know how to
properly use them.
Building your a.m. routine Building your p.m. routine
Start by washing your face with a good cleans-
er; this will remove buildup that your skin
produced overnight. When choosing a cleanser
it’s important to find one that is Ph balanced.
“Your skin is going to accept your products
much better if it’s at the correct Ph level,” ex-
plains Heather Roberts who works at New Life
Aesthetics as an aesthetic nurse.
Next to apply would be a good serum such
as vitamin C. Vitamin C works to brighten the
skin, help with skin discoloration and helps
keep the skin healthy. If you want to go even
further you could also apply a hyaluronic acid
after your vitamin C to add extra hydration and
help prevent wrinkles.
“Hyaluronic acid is important for the skin but
if you’re wanting for just the basics you can just
stick to a vitamin C,” Roberts adds.
So, if you’re not looking to add any more steps
or spend the extra money, it is not needed.
Most importantly, you should apply a mois-
turizer with an SPF as our skin is our largest
organ, which is why we need to protect it from
harmful sun exposure.
“Sunscreen is by far the number one anti-ag-
ing thing you can do and just for the overall
health of the skin,” says Roberts.
Having good sunscreen will also keep the skin
moisturized, and will help prevent wrinkles and
cancer. Carrigan suggests using a moisturizer
that has sunscreen in it with an SPF of 30 or
greater.
During the day your skin is exposed to a
variety of elements so you need to protect it,
but at night is when your skin goes to work to
repair itself, which is why it is important to use
the correct products for the best results.
If you’ve worn makeup during the day, you
should double cleanse your face with a pH
cleanser, as washing it once usually doesn’t
remove all the makeup. Also, use a washcloth to
exfoliate the skin, Robert suggests.
After completely drying your face you should
use a retinol cream. Using retinol causes the
skin cells to turn over more quickly, which will
help give the skin a fresher, younger appear-
ance.
To further enhance the effects of brightening
it is important to use vitamin C a second time,
which will also let your skin further absorb the
nutrients.
Created by: Nuke P (Canvas), Edited by:
Rodrigo Scott
“At nightime, use other products that contain
good vitamins for your skin before you go to
bed because the most rejuvenation happens
when you’re sleeping, ” Carrigan says.
.
To finish, use a good moisturizer to keep the
skin hydrated, soft and prevent aging. As most
young people tend to produce oil, Roberts rec-
ommends using an oil-free moisturizer but this
may vary depending on different skin types.
Keeping your skincare routine quick and easy
is important. Roberts says, “The more simple a
routine the more people are likely to stick to it
and not give up.”
Both the content for this newslet-
ter and the design are created by
students enrolled in
COMM 3310 Copy Editing and
Design in the School of Communi-
cation at East
Carolina University in Greenville,
North Carolina during the Spring
and Fall semesters
under the direction of course in-
structor Barbara Bullington.
We welcome suggestions for article
ideas for future issues.
For inquiries, please email bulling-
tonb@ecu.edu
p. 3