A Check-In for Incoming 3rd Year College Students

By Julia Dunn on June 28, 2016

Big news, upcoming 3rd-year college students! You’re roughly halfway through college!

If you just finished your second year, it may be hard to believe that you’re about to enter the last half or so of your undergraduate career. It might seem scary to some students and exciting to others, and you may even be freaking out about whether you’re on track to achieve your goals. For all soon-to-be third-years, here are some ways to ensure you make the most out of the rest of your college career.

Figure out when you’re expected to graduate, and plan accordingly.

Depending on your major/degree pathway and whether you’ve taken transferrable exams for credit or attended summer session courses to satisfy prerequisites and general education courses, you may be ahead of the game in your degree requirements. If this is the case, you may be graduating during or after your third year, and graduate school-bound students need to start thinking about the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) if your desired institution requires a GRE score.

If you’re behind in your requirements for any reason, begin planning when you’ll take the rest of your courses and follow any procedures your university may require for students to stay a 5th year or even an extra term. College moves quickly, as we all likely know, and you don’t want important deadlines to sneak up on you.

Decide if you really love your major.

Having just finished your second year, you probably have a strong idea of what your major’s classes really entail. Now is likely the last chance to change your major without being drastically behind schedule to graduate, because you could take summer courses to start early and move forward.

Image via Flickr

Even for students who love their majors to pieces, there may be a couple of classes in their course requirements that they enjoy less than others. This is normal — don’t change your major just because you don’t like one class in a list of 15 required classes. You should change your major if you hate all of the classes required of that degree.

If it makes you excited to think about the overall subject involved with your major, you’re likely in a great place.

Assess your campus involvement and professional experience.

If half your college career is over and you haven’t scoped out organizations that interest you, now is the time to engage with them before it’s too late. Students who are involved on and off campus in organizations or job positions make stronger applicants to a full-time job after college and to graduate school. Have you acquired the skills needed to stand out in a stack of applications? Are you finding yourself enriched with campus life, or have you felt disengaged in your past two years at school? Now is the time to find out what you want to learn and which experiences you want to explore.

Get organized and prepared for upper division courses.

Although you may already have begun your upper division or intensive major courses as a second year, most students begin their more difficult classes during their third year and continue on with them into their fourth year. Your workload may become more demanding as your class subjects grow in specificity. Upper division classes are more tailored to suit a student’s interests, so get excited about Physiology of Marine Invertebrates, Ancient Feminism of East India, or Psychology of Memory. You’ll find students interested in the same sub-fields of your major, which is extremely exciting!

As for time management in these classes, figure out what has worked for you the past two years and what has not worked as far as keeping deadlines straight, completing assignments on time, and sticking to a realistic study schedule. You’ve got to have these skills down before enrolling in energy-intensive courses that often allow for more student-instructor contact.

Find a job.

Even if it’s five hours a week during the academic year, find a job by your third year if you haven’t started working already. It’s convenient if your job relates to your proposed career path or your declared major, but it is okay if your job doesn’t directly align with your degree. What matters is that you are able to spend time in a professional environment while picking up professional skills and experiences working with others as well as by yourself. Plus, money is a huge barrier at times for college students, and a job can certainly alleviate that stress.

If you aren’t taking classes the summer before your third year, see if you can even work a full-time job for a few months if possible. Talk to your employer about maybe decreasing hours during the school year so that you don’t have to quit. Most employers with businesses or nonprofits near a university are used to students having tight schedules, and if your job is on-campus (work study or non-work study), hiring managers definitely understand the struggles of being a student.

Above all, be proud of all you have accomplished thus far in your college careers and set yourself up for greatness as you close out your undergraduate life!

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