How does a student reconcile the need for summer courses with all the excitement flying around them? How do they buckle down with their readings and tests when the sun is shining, friends are texting, family is planning a trip abroad, etc.? It can feel like an impossible weight to balance.
For many students, “summer” and “school” are like oil and water – they don’t mix easily. But maybe, you just need to shake things up.
Our premier Ontario online high school is here to help you with that shake-up. In this article, we offer stellar tips to help you balance the weight of summer studies with the promise of summer adventures.
To start, perhaps it’s best to review some of the wide-ranging benefits of summer studies. They help students:
- Get ahead in their high school courses for faster graduation
- Catch up on missed courses to complete high school on time
- Strengthen their marks through upgrade courses
- And beat that nasty summer slump to hit the ground running in September
As you embark on your online summer school journey, keep those advantages in mind. Next, follow the five over-arching tips below to enjoy your summer and strengthen your academic future.
Mapping Out Your Time: A Little Planning Goes a Long Way
You want two things: one, to enjoy your summer to the fullest; two, to complete your summer courses with the highest marks possible. To achieve those twin goals, it pays to be prepared.
Planning your time, activities, and academic obligations will allow you to separate and compartmentalize them. In doing so, you’ll find that you are more focused on the task at hand – whether that’s solving an algebraic equation or floating lazily on an Ontario lake. Here’s how to map out your time.
Plan Adventures and Holidays in Advance
If your family is considering a trip or extended getaway, learn the details in advance. This way, you can incorporate that away time into your study schedule, compensating for the missed time by tacking on a couple of extra hours per each week of study time. It might take some quick math at the beginning of your course to allocate your time properly, but it will be worth it.
Develop a Flexible, Balanced Study Schedule
Next, create a study schedule. As mentioned above, undertake this step in conjunction with a leisure-time schedule that includes any upcoming trips, activities, or day plans. Once you know your “absent” days, you can calculate the time you need to study each day as a fraction of the overall course length. This systematized approach ensures that you stay on track – but it also ensures that you make time for everything this summer, from academics to fun. It’s one of the fundamental strategies for summer school success.
Create Articulate, Achievable and Time-Sensitive Goals
Goals create an underlying sense of motivation for your schedule. They represent a shining light at the end of a tunnel – a sense of future fulfilment and satisfaction to strive toward. We highly recommend them. However, be careful to articulate your goals, making them as concrete as possible. It also helps to create timelines for your goals, locking them into a containable period. And ensure you make these goals achievable – demanding you achieve an A-plus in Physics 12, while it’s possible, is being unduly hard on yourself! Leave a little wiggle room to exceed your own expectations.
Keep Track of Your Progress
Lastly, refer back to your goals occasionally. Are you on track to achieve them? Or do you need to work faster or slower? Keeping periodic track of your progress allows you to fine-tune your study schedule to maintain a winning pace and achieve your goals.
Blocking Distractions: When You’re Studying, You’re Studying
You might notice a theme emerging in this article. To balance your studies and summer fun effectively, you need to keep the two things separate and compartmentalized (there’s even more on that second point in the section below).
What does that mean for your study time? It means that when you’re studying, you’re studying. You aren’t half-studying while keeping one eye on the clock. You aren’t scrolling social media with a digital textbook opened next to you. To achieve balance, you need to dedicate your study time wholly to academic focus. Don’t worry – the fun stuff comes later.
Set Up Your Study Space – Wherever That May Be
The first step in staying focused is creating an environment conducive to concentration. Ideally, your study space should be free of clutter, free of distractions, free of sound, free of discomfort.
That’s the “perfect world” example of a study space; however, we understand that it’s not always possible. Just try your best to create a dedicated study space. Even if that means setting up your laptop stand on a Muskoka dock while your family makes lunch inside the cottage, so be it!
Consider Distraction-Blocking Apps
If you’re like most high-school-aged students, you have a whole slew of apps vying for your attention. Whether it’s push notifications from TikTok or WhatsApp message groups blowing up your lock screen, that phone keeps lighting up. While those stimuli are nice most of the time, they can be incredibly distracting when you’re trying to study. We recommend setting screen time limits with a distraction-blocking app, which temporarily restrict access to certain social media apps.
Utilize a Short-Term Time Management Option
Your schedule (see the section above) is your long-term time management plan. However, it has little jurisdiction in the short term – you know, when you’re actually studying. To stay on task while studying, you need a productivity strategy. Several time management techniques work, but we’re partial to The Pomodoro Technique, a strategy for blocking time that integrates several short breaks.
Learn How to Deal with FOMO
Summer can seem like a perpetual parade of fun things happening right outside your view. Especially when you’re studying, shaking that “fear of missing out” can be a challenge.
This Time Magazine article does a fantastic job summarizing FOMO and how to overcome it. Sure, it’s a tad dated in its reference points (citing Facebook as the main social media presence for students), but its takeaways are evergreen. Focus on the moment; try to be happy about what you’re doing currently; and do not benchmark your happiness against the fun you think others are having.
Blocking Distractions (Part 2): Enjoy Your Breaks
As important as studying is, it’s equally important to take breaks. These breaks might be brief, half-hour recharges between study sessions. They might be weekend getaways. Or, for some, they can be full-on vacations abroad, right smack dab in the middle of a summer course.
Whatever the break, it’s important that you turn off the “school” part of your brain. Don’t let academic frustrations or upcoming test anxiety spoil your “you time.” We talked in the previous section about dedicating yourself to academics during study time; now, we tackle the opposite.
Practice “Compartmentalization”
In the sections above, we mentioned “compartmentalizing,” which is a serious looking word. However, compartmentalization is a simple concept. Essentially, it involves separating the elements of your life into “compartments,” attempting to keep their associative emotions free from each other.
If you’re excited about a new relationship, keep that in the “relationship compartment” so the infatuation doesn’t interfere with your academics. Likewise, if you’re stressed about school, keep that in the “school compartment” so it won’t spoil your leisure time. It’s an easier process in theory than in practice, but mastering it can help you reduce stress and live in the present.
Let Your Teachers Know You’re Taking a Break
If you want to spend a summer weekend or week focused solely on leisure, that’s your prerogative. Let your teachers know that you’ll be away from your digital desk, and that you plan to catch up on schoolwork at a later date. Not only will this signal to your teachers not to bother you during this special time, but it will psychologically prepare you for the time off.
Consider Disconnecting
Distraction-blocking apps work just as well during leisure times. The constant buzz of a phone can pull you away from what makes summer adventures so special – the spontaneity, social connection and natural beauty. Consider halting (or limiting) social media time during your summer breaks, and check your email inbox infrequently.
Focus on What Makes You Happy
This might sound cliched, but a sure-fire way to enjoy your summer leisure time is to be mindful and grateful. Constantly check in with yourself, exploring the things around you that make you happy and content. This simple task allows you to focus on the moment and highlight positive experiences.
Capitalizing on the Season: Studying in the Summer
Summer is a fantastic time to be a student. With balmy weather and fresh breezes, the world is your study space.
While the prior sections dealt with separating studies and summer, this section explores tips for merging the two by capitalizing on the season. Here’s how to soak up the sun and soak in some knowledge.
Study in the Fresh Air and Sunshine
Who says you need to study in a stuffy bedroom? The weather’s beautiful outside! Charge your laptop to 100%, grab a beach towel, and find a cozy, grassy area to establish your remote study space. The fresh air will mentally invigorate you, and the Vitamin-D rich sunshine can help regulate your mood and sharpen your focus.
Make Use of Off-Season Libraries
Most university libraries are open to the public. They are stacked with fantastic resources, filled with quiet study nooks, and – best of all – sparsely populated in the summer months. If you’re looking for a quiet place to concentrate, head to your local university for the afternoon.
Use Some of Your Break Time for Healthy Summer Habits
If you follow a time management method like the Pomodoro Technique, you will have frequent blocks of break time to enjoy the outdoors. During some of these breaks, you will relish the opportunity to lay face down on the couch or absentmindedly scroll your phone – that’s normal. However, consider using some of your break blocks for healthy summer habits like running, outdoor yoga, or even gardening.
Find Other Summer Students to Form a Study Group
A fantastic way to balance academic responsibilities with a summer social schedule is to form a summer study group. Find friends who are also taking summer courses, and schedule times to meet up, chat about schoolwork, and help each other work through problems.
Also please note: If you are running into issues with course work, you will always find help at OES. Whether you need clarification on a concept, or help working through challenging units, you can always contact your teachers or OES’s 24/7 free tutoring service. This robust support system is our way of ensuring you get the most out of summer school.
Reconnecting With What Drives You: Stay Engaged and Motivated
As a parting note, we encourage summer school students to routinely reconnect with their motivators. It can be easy – come week three of a two-month course – to lose sight of why you’re studying in the first place. However, staying in conversation with what drives you can help you remain motivated and engaged.
Why are you taking OES’s online courses for high school students this summer? Are you improving your grades to enter a competitive university science faculty, and realize your dream of one day becoming a veterinarian? Are you aiming to graduate high school early so you can launch that app company you’ve always dreamt of? Or are you simply proving to yourself that you are a smart, academically capable student who can do anything you put your mind to?
Whatever your reasons, hold onto them. Remind yourself often.
Hopefully, these five overarching tips assist you in balancing summer school and summer adventures. At OES, we want you to have a fulfilling summer, both personally and academically. Balancing your time effectively enables you to have that cake – and eat it too.
