Dear Reader,
When I applied to college, no one had bothered to tell me the difference between the quarter and semester systems. I would hear the words on college tours, accompanied by good-natured eye-rolling and sighs by the guides, then promptly forget them, because they frankly meant nothing to me. To tell you the truth, I did not realize the fourth quarter was summer. So in my head, the school year was divided into four shockingly tiny portions, and I left it at that. Once I got into Northwestern and realized that the quarter was actually one-third of the school year, I felt pretty prepared to handle it. The quarter system reminded me of a shiny new quarter and all of the academic riches that awaited me.
Reader, the quarter system was not shiny, nor was it new (NU adopted the system in 1942), and the only thing it made me rich in was problems.
The closest thing I can compare the quarter system to is swimming in the ocean — one moment you’re blissfully unaware, then you’re absolutely bodied by a wave. If that’s never happened to you before, imagine you’re standing up one minute, soaking in the sun, and the next, you don’t know which way is up or down. Suddenly, you’re swallowing criminal amounts of saltwater and getting thrown around like a sock in a dryer. The first two or three weeks of the quarter are the blissful part, and the other seven are the near-drowning, sock-in-the-dryer fiasco. I’ve put down my advice here, which pretty much amounts to metaphorically plugging your nose and bracing for the wave.
One bad grade won’t kill you!
But it will probably make you feel terrible, at least for a little while. Allow yourself the time to feel like a failure and a screw-up and catastrophize about how this one pop quiz will ruin the next 10 years, and then pick yourself back up off the ground by eating some dining hall pizza. I got my worst grades when I was still getting used to college, and honestly, I wish I could have told past me that those bad grades would make her a better and more resilient person (and student) than an “A” ever could have.
There are good places to cry on campus.
And there are also terrible places to cry on campus! I personally would not recommend public bathrooms with more than one stall, because it makes life significantly worse for both you and any person that needs to pee, say, on the fifth floor of University Library. In a pinch, even walking very fast and crying is better than trapping yourself in a room with a tampon vending machine and a rotating cast of characters. The Lakefill is a better option, as are most basements, single-stall bathrooms (also usually in basements), and, if you’re able to plan your breakdowns, reserved study rooms. It’s also okay to feel sad, even if it’s not about grades. Sometimes the pace we go at makes you feel like there’s no time to even mope around a little, but having a good cry and then getting back up and starting again saves you time in the long run because you don’t have to lug a bunch of misery around with you for weeks.
Look two weeks into the future, but live in the present.
Do whatever you need to do: Google Calendar, Post-it notes, an elaborate Notion schedule, an endless list of tasks in your notes app. As long as you can visualize an outline of what you might have to do in the next two weeks, you may become exhausted and overwhelmed, but you will never be surprised. It’s shocking, but it turns out that being absolutely spin-cycled is a little bit less bad if you know that it’s coming and brace accordingly.
But, lest you make my mistake from the winter of freshman year, let me warn you that living completely within an endless list of essays and discussion posts is a fool’s errand. It makes you very on edge, you risk forgetting all of your readings by the time you actually discuss them in class and you let a lot of the actual fun of college pass you by. And trust me, there is fun. But if you’re studying for a midterm that’s four weeks away until your eyeballs get dry, you will for sure miss it.
Eyes on the prize, champ.
Surviving the quarter becomes a lot easier when you have a clear list of priorities. This should probably be first on the list, realistically, but because I’ve always been bad at it, it’s getting buried here. If you know that your classes are what you want to focus on, then you can tell all your clubs to go kick rocks when they try and make you take on more stuff. If you’ve decided that this quarter is the one where you prioritize your friendships, you don’t really need to read every word of the reading that you’re not going to use in your final paper anyway. And one of the few great things about the quarter system is that it changes fast — fast enough that you can shift your priorities one way or the next every few months.
If you’re on an endless treadmill, you might as well enjoy the ride.
If this step bears an uncanny resemblance to certain popular aspects of a Greek myth, mind your business and no it doesn’t. The fact is, if you can’t stop the quarter system from feeling like a race you’re destined to lose or a never-ending washing machine cycle, you might as well treat it like a rollercoaster ride. Life isn’t going to slow down, ever, so you have to take those moments to cry by the Lakefill, have dinner with your roommates or read a book for fun once in a while. You don’t have to wait for winter break to be a human or to take a breath above the wave. You can start right now. You can start even as you begin another 30-page reading or lab report. You can start even as you get back to your room after a late night at the library. Eventually, and as the quarters tick by, you can stop bracing yourself in fear of the waves and start welcoming them. The difference between a near-drowning experience and a dive beneath the waves is often just a matter of perspective.
At some point, like it or not, you will probably learn to swim. I mean, I haven’t yet, but here’s to hoping!
If you have a pressing problem you need advice on, or a response to this, email [email protected] with “Best Guess” in the subject line.
Mika Ellison is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
