Senioritis Hacks

During 99% of my academic career, I've been extremely studious, but lately the academic setting has had little appeal for me. I'm ready to join the work world and I'm desperate to get a head start. A lot of my free time is spent looking at online job postings and stalking out people on LinkedIn whose careers I admire. With this one-foot-out-the-door mentality, I've struggled trying to focus on my schoolwork.

Photo Credit: Liz Sauerbrunn's "College Graduation

Fortunately, I packed a lot of work into my first three years of college and now have a fairly relaxed senior year. My culminating project for my major was completed during my junior year so now I'm merely racking up the credits I need to graduate. The only downside to this is that I don't really feel as compelled to give my all to the assignments because I don't perceive them as having as much value as my past classes.

In order to make the best out of this final semester, I've decided to come up with some "hacks" to make getting through the end of my college career a little simpler and hopefully more fun. But coming up with these hacks means nothing if I don't hold myself accountable so at the end of the week I'll be posting updates on how successful I've been at overcoming my senioritis. Here are the hacks I'll be using this week:

1. Find your passion project: I think what is holding me back the most with my school work is that I don't really feel passionate about the work I'm doing. Constantly reading things that I don't care about or resonate with gets me down, and I don't feel obliged to struggle on. However, if I take time out of my busy schedule to do something that sparks ideas and promotes creativity, I find it a lot easier to get back into the boring doldrums of regular work because my mind has be stimulated again. 
2. Start a countdown: As a visual learner, I've found that the best way to remind myself that graduation is close is to put up a calendar, mark the day of graduation, and cross out the days that have passed. This way I can actually see myself getting closer to graduation and not get stuck on how much work is left to do. I can see that in the scheme of my lifetime, I'm so close to starting the next chapter that I feel the immediate weight of readings, papers, and tests lifted off my shoulders. I recommend using a printable calendar, posting it on a bulletin board, and marking each day off with a neon pink sharpie
3. Network: Whenever I find myself feeling bored by academia, I look for opportunities to network. Talking to people who have finished their degree and are living their dreams is an ideal way to gain inspiration and potential contacts. I would recommend going to any networking events that your alumni relations office holds because you get to see people who survived graduated from your school and have most likely been prosperous. Bonus: These events usually have free food, which is perfect considering your student loans will start looming soon enough. 

On Sunday, I'll update you with how I'm using my hacks and hopefully show some progress on defeating my senioritis. If you have any tips of your own, please share them in the comments and maybe I'll implement them in my strategy!