At college, you have the freedom to make your own decisions. This newfound freedom can cause many of us to develop bad habits – which could impact your studies and your life in general. Below are five bad habits that you should avoid developing.
Skipping classes
After a late night, it’s all too easy to sleep in and miss lectures and seminars. However, in doing so you’ll be missing out on important learning that you’re paying for. While your lecturer may post notes online to help you catch up, you may find that these notes aren’t as useful as learning in person. Most people who get into a habit of regularly skipping lectures and seminars end up missing out on important information for exams and essays – this could lead to low grades and potentially could cause you to fail the year or not get the outcome that you desired.
Pulling all-nighters
Many of us develop bad sleep habits at college. This could include going to bed in the early hours or even pulling frequent all-nighters. Common reasons for this may include leaving an important essay to the last minute and having to stay up all night to finish it or going out partying the night before you have a seminar or lecture. This lack of sleep can affect the quality of your studies as well as damaging your general health. Avoid all-nighters by managing your time better – don’t leave an essay or revision until the night before and don’t attend a house party (or at least don’t stay too late) if you have studies the next morning.
Eating unhealthily
Many people also adopt an unhealthy diet while at college. It’s easy to rely on junk food if you don’t know how to cook or are simply too lazy – however constant frozen pizzas and takeout could start to damage your body and affect your concentration at college. Consuming too much sugar is a big problem to be wary of and could lead to tooth decay – registering with first-class dental specialists could ensure that you keep up with checkups, but it’s important that you also limit your soft drinks and candy. Similarly, you should limit your caffeine.
Partying too hard
A lot of us drink heavily while at college and may even habitually take drugs. It’s important to have restraint and not let this affect your studies or your health. If you’re going to a party instead of revising for an important exam the next day, you’ve taken the partying too far. It’s also important to be wary of the dangers of partying in excess including alcohol poisoning, drug abuse, injury, sexual assault or behaving recklessly as a result of losing inhibition to drink and drugs.
Spending too much time indoors
While some people spend all their time at college partying, others become social recluses, spending all their free time gaming or binging TV series. Not only could you be missing out on the social experiences available at college, but you could be damaging your health by not being active enough and not getting enough sun exposure. Just as reckless partying could cause long-term damage, spending all day indoors could have a similar impact on your mental and physical health so try to encourage yourself to get out of your room.