Ahh, spring! After the winter we had, spring is certainly welcomed by most everyone. With spring comes the warm weather, longer days and thoughts of the upcoming summer. While all of these things are good, they can also derail your studies. Trust me, I’ve been there before.

I went to college in Erie, PA. For those of you lucky enough to not live in or visit this city, it snows from October through April since it sits on Lake Erie. Even more depressing is that for a large part of winter, the sun hides behind the clouds. When spring finally does arrive with the warm weather, it is literally like a vacation!

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As a result of the warm weather, my studies suffered. My friends and I would stay out later playing basketball. We would head to the beach and hang out there after class and on the weekends. And, since everyone was in a good mood, we threw a lot of parties. With all of these extra-curricular activities going on, we hardly had any time to study. And our grades reflected that. To save you from the bad grades, below I present you with a handful of ways to enjoy the spring while still focusing on your studies.

Study Outside

The last thing I wanted to do was to be stuck in the library on a beautiful day. So I studied outside. What makes this great is getting a blanket and inviting a few friends along with you. That way you can still study and enjoy the warm weather.

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On note of caution however, you might need to search around for a good study spot. At my college, people would be playing music with their dorm windows open and others would be hanging outside having fun. You will have to search around for an ideal spot that is in the sun and is quiet so that you can focus on your studies.

Pay Attention To The Weather

My friends and I started to use this trick after we started to do poorly in class. We would watch the news, specifically the weather to see what it was going to be like for the week. We would then pick the one or two best days of the week and agree to go to the beach or hang out on those days. The other days were devoted to studying. This worked great for us. We had a plan to not only get our studying in, but we could also enjoy the great weather. Bonus if there is rain for one of the days as that will make the decision making process that much easier.

Take Advantage of Class Schedules

This won’t be an option for you this year, but keep this in mind for next year when you are registering for spring classes. I personally didn’t want any afternoon classes. I would sit in class, staring out the window, longing for the freedom of doing nothing. At the same time, I didn’t want the 8am class either since I was probably staying up later than usual most nights. I ended up picking the classes in the mid morning, from 9am through to lunch.
As the years went on though, I changed my outlook on 8am classes, especially in the spring. You see, my college was on trimesters. This meant that classes were held Monday/Wednesday/Friday and others Tuesday/Thursday.

I realized that if the scheduling God’s looked down on me, I could get my classes on Tuesday/Thursday and this is what I did. I started at 8am and went through to lunch. And then I was done. On Thursday at lunchtime, I was free until Tuesday at 8am. In other words, every week in the spring semester for my junior and senior years, I had a 4 day weekend. It was glorious.

Determine When You Are Most Productive

The final tip is to figure out when you are most productive. Maybe you would rather study in the afternoon so that you could hang with friends at night. Or you would rather spend the afternoon relaxing and study at night. Once you figure out when you are most productive, you can work around the nice weather and still be productive. For me, it wasnít this easy as I wanted to enjoy the sunshine and hang with my friends at night. That is why we worked on the weather schedule I outlined above.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it can be very easy to let your studies slip when the warm spring weather arrives. The key is to figure out a way to enjoy the great weather while still studying and keeping your grades up. If you take a little bit of time to figure out how to make this work best for you, you will be able to easily enjoy both.