My College Fall Semester Goals

I’m going into my junior year of college, which is terrifying. As I near the second half of college, I’m starting to get an idea of the things I want to and need to change and thus my fall semester goals are born. These fall semester goals are things I’m going to try to accomplish this semester and hopefully they can inspire you to make your own goals and complete them! Or at least attempt to complete them until you forget about them a week or so later. Whoops.

1. Consistently write for my campus’ Her Campus chapter.

I love Her Campus so much and I really enjoy writing for them but last semester I think I wrote maybe one post. I definitely took on too much because I also write for the Lala bi-weekly and do two posts for eyeliner wings & pretty things per week while juggling schoolwork and an on-campus job. I sound like I’m humble-bragging boo hoo! so busy! but I’m trying to justify why I didn’t write for my HC chapter and it’s not really working. This semester I hope to step it up.

2. Attend the Zumba classes EVERY week.

My roommate and I had a great phase where we went to the gym 4-5 days per week but then we totally stopped. We also used to go to the free on-campus Zumba classes and had a ton of fun and really felt the burn but we also stopped doing that. This semester I’m so determined to attend Zumba on a weekly basis to stay in shape. If the Zumba schedule has conflicts with my class schedule I suppose I’ll just go to the gym, but I never feel like I get as good of a workout and the gym is really far this year so I’m not really hyped about that.

3. Wake up early even when I don’t have to.

My sleeping habits last semester were atrocious. I had two days per week with 8 AM classes and two days per week with no class at all so I would wake up at 7 AM one morning and 11 AM the next. It wasn’t good at all and lately in the summer I’ve been accidentally waking up early and I find myself being so productive, which is amazing.

4. Listen to podcasts during my nightly routine.

I tried this recently and it was pretty calming. My night routine is pretty extensive and I’ve always wanted to try to listen to more podcasts but I can never force myself to do it when I have so many other things I could be doing (ie: blogging, Netflixing, etc). While I’m doing my night routine I don’t really have anything else to focus on so I might as well get a little productive and listen to some podcasts.

5. Cook more meals.

I think the only meals I cooked last year were frozen, from a box or baked ziti. I occasionally cooked cauliflower or chicken and broccoli stir fry to get in some veggies, but I hope to do that more this semester. Cooking really doesn’t take that long and it isn’t that hard plus, goddamn, my Pinterest recipe boards are overflowing. You know what’s sad? A lot of the time I didn’t cook because I didn’t want to wash dishes and the reason I didn’t want to wash dishes was so I didn’t chip my nail polish. I’m a monster.

6. Make new friends in classes.

Of all of the fall semester goals this one is possibly the most difficult. I have a feeling I’m not going to have any friends in my classes next semester (except one that my roomie is in!) and I hate not knowing anyone. Typically I’ll ignore that and just kind of go to class and leave without interacting with others, as many do, but this semester I definitely need to try to be friendlier. It’s always nice to have a buddy in your classes, you know?

7. Go to the library more.

I’m not the kind of person who needs to be in the library to get work done. In fact, when I’m in the library I just print out a ton of shit because it’s free printing and I like printing out articles and stuff for my research projects. Sorry, environment. I don’t actually get much done but I think it’s because I’m usually only in the library for ten minutes at a time or so.

8. Be more patient with neighbors.

I’m the first one to start complaining if my neighbors are loud or if there’s dirty dishes in the sink, but usually I’ll just complain to my poor BFF. I won’t actually do anything about these issues. I need to get more patient and adapt to my surroundings. If next door is loud, I can put my earbuds in (unless I’m trying to sleep, in which case, this whole goal goes to shit because I’m not having it). This year we’re living next to a Resident Director so I’m assuming he/she won’t be poppin’ bottles all hours of the night, so that should be nice.

9. Use my planner, like ACTUALLY.

I keep buying super cute planners, using them for a week and then totally forgetting about them. I’m balancing a lot of crap next semester and I need to use a planner because the Reminders app on my phone and my dry erase calendar can only handle so much.

10. Pack less stuff.

This year I’m going to try to cut the amount of stuff I packed in half. I didn’t use, need or wear most of the things I packed for college and I ended up tossing/donating so much food–such a waste of money but at least some of it went to a good cause. I’m not saying I’m going to become a minimalist but I can at least become less of a hoarder, right?

11. Maintain ew & pt with two posts per week.

This won’t be too easy, but I did it last year so I’m confident I can do it again this year. I also want to try to do my newsletter more regularly, but, uh, we’ll see how that goes. If you’re not subscribed you definitely should (see end of this post or sidebar) because I only send e-mails once or twice a month and I’m funny sometimes, I promise.

12. Buy less snacks.

This kind of ties in to #10 but damn, I had so many snacks less semester. I have a horrible snacking habit (especially when bored) and by having less snacks, I’m hoping to break this habit. Maybe I’ll focus on healthier snacks or something. I also need to buy less cheese because I legitimately had seven (spreadable cheese wedges, string cheese, white American cheese slice singles, shredded mozzarella, shredded cheddar, shredded jack cheese, ricotta cheese…) types of cheese in my fridge at any given time. I have 99 problems and 7 of them are my cheese addictions.

 What are your fall semester goals?