How to Obtain Your Dream College Schedule

Learn 3 crucial ways to get the most out of your education

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

Why hunt for a pre-conceived and rarely existing “dream college life” when you can practically guarantee it by making it out of something that’s already available to you?

Many of us have experienced the joys and disappointments of starting a new educational phase of life.

Regularly making commitments to new complicated schedules that may make or break our long-term success is a difficult thing to go through.

We’ve had hopes and ideals for the next few years sobered as we found that some classes became unavailable, our favorite teacher retired, or we lost interest.

Whether this happened in high school or college, whether it’s currently happening or long finished, it’s not too late to learn from it.

So how can we derive satisfaction from these periods?

How can we build schedules that we are confident in?

How can we get excited about the education we’ve thrusted upon ourselves?

Spend 5 minutes learning what took me six years to figure out below.

---

Decide on your flexible long term path

Pre-med or math? English or history? Physics or engineering?

There are so many career paths out there. How do we pick?

I personally bounced between a few at the end of high school. I was really into math but I wanted to do something applied. I loved computer science but I wanted something more flexible. I even took a crazy turn into the world of art.

I finally decided on physics.

If you already know what you want to do, by all means, go for it. But if you’re deciding on career paths and you’re unsure and time is running out, try out a widely applicable field.

This will give you the option to make clean pivots further down the road if you feel the need.

You’ll also be able to take comfort in knowing that if your chosen major isn’t exactly what you wanted and you don’t know what to switch to, it’s at least a good stepping stone to get you where you want to be.

With your major chosen, make sure to build a good understanding of the pathways available to you as soon as possible.

Find those interesting pivots and career overlaps and identify classes you could see yourself turning into a passion.

The most helpful thing I was forced to do in college was review all of my major’s available classes and form a full four-year plan before I applied to it.

This process multiplied my understanding of what my university offered me and which routes I could feasibly take.

So do this yourself before committing. Research your major and your pathways to find the most exciting and motivating roads. If you can’t find ANY paths that spark some interest in you, maybe you should simply pick a different major and work from there, happy to have narrowed down your scope.

Target a niche you enjoy

Exploring specializations in undergrad is extremely important for learning about what you want to do and what you’re good at.

When I was halfway through my freshman year, I attended a physics grad student panel which aimed to share insights from Masters and PhD students.

Here’s my biggest takeaway from that panel:

Spend your undergraduate years exploring. You have more freedom than you think to take a class or join a club you don’t strictly need which could inspire a fulfilling passion.

When you find a niche, you’ll be ecstatic when you stumble across any course that targets it.

I wholeheartedly believe that this is an underrated way to drive immense amounts of motivation towards attacking our next college schedule because while your school may have always offered it, YOU discovered a class exactly about what YOU were already interested in.

You didn’t grudgingly take on something as a last resort or compromise your interests for credits or GPA.

You found a class that prompts dreams of a potential career and sparks nervous excitement in your gut just from its description.

To paint a clearer picture, my jump into physics led me to explore a specialization in quantum computing. I saw this as a fantastic way to explore my interests in both computer science and physics while making strong progress in my major. Now, every time I see a class that targets the skills I need for qubit research or quantum software development, I jump on it immediately and wait eagerly for the next quarter to start.

Now, it’s important to remember that by no means does your specialization of today confine you for tomorrow. Consistency is key to success however you define it but you have the freedom to explore multiple specializations and go through phases.

I attended a career panel at the University of Minnesota’s Quantum + Chips summer program and learned that most PhD students go on to a successful career focused on anything but their PhD specialization!

This isn’t to say that they wasted their time. It means that the skills they built and the act of pursuing their fields to great lengths displayed their potential to contribute strongly within any work environment.

So explore niches that interest you, use them to drive excitement for your courses, and switch them if they aren’t for you or double down hard if you love them. Whatever happens, you’ll be making valuable progress while doing what you enjoy.

Network. A lot.

So you’ve picked a major and a niche.

You find it easy to get excited for some of your classes.

But your major still has some less-than-desirable requirements and you still want to choose the best possible path for you.

This is where networking can get you access to tailored pathways that aren’t generally available.

Part of my major requirements are to complete two advanced labs. Last year, I knew two things about this:

1. I wasn’t thrilled by my options

2. I had been enjoying my choice specialization in quantum computing and my hands-on experience with it in my research group

Then something like a miracle happened.

I learned that a professor closely affiliated with the lab I worked in was offering a first-ever lab course in quantum technologies through the electrical and computer engineering department.

Perfect!

The problem, however, was that this dream lab of mine wouldn’t work for me because it was part of a different department and I was also a little under-qualified based on my courses completed.

But I emailed the professor of the lab to ask if I could get in because of my extra-curricular experience and I met with my research professor to see if I could count the course towards my advanced lab requirements and both worked out!

My point with this is to show that if you focus on building connections in your areas of interest, you can find opportunities that boost your efficiency in pursuing what you want while satisfying the requirements you’re obligated to fulfill.

So don’t shy away from the people that are doing what you want to do. They are willing to help more often than you’d think.

---

Thank you for making it to the end! If you learned something from this article, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss out on my regular posts about becoming more productive and getting more out of your environment.