Five Mistakes We’ve All Made as a Student

Due tomorrow does not mean do tomorrow 🥲

We've all had our fair share of student slip-ups—whether it’s cramming the night before an exam, submitting the wrong assignment, or thinking we could survive on sugar-free Monsters. Here’s a look at some of the funniest (and most relatable) mistakes we’ve made. 

As someone who’s been through the trials and tribulations of both high school and uni, allow me to take you through some of the things I didn’t do as a student and what you can do to make this school year a bit easier – whether you’re in high school or uni. 

School can suck and it can be really stressful, but it can also be a time full of great memories and fun times. And doing little things like this can be a good way to prevent burn-out and losing motivation. 

Putting too much pressure on myself and my grades. 

I was never the best at taking exams or tests, and I had a tendency to put a lot of pressure on myself to get good marks. But the thing is, school is difficult and getting a bad grade is never the end of the world. Even if you fail a subject, you can always try again and in a few years that bad grade that you got won’t even matter.  

The best thing you can do is to take a minute to reflect on where you went wrong and try better for next time.  

Just remember – your grades don’t define you. And if you need a bit of extra help dealing with those bad marks, we got you. 

Leaving assignments or studying to the last minute.

Trust me when I tell you that there is nothing worse than sitting hunched over a desk, with a desk light blaring onto the laptop in front of you, four Redbulls deep as you’re furiously typing and desperately trying to finish that assignment last minute.  

Not only is this bad for your mental and physical health, pulling all-nighters for a test or finishing an assignment will leave you feeling very burnt out. 

When you get an assignment or have something to study for, write it down in a planner, laptop notes, reminder on your phone, even a sticky note – whatever you need to remember it. Then, break down the assignment or studying into smaller tasks that can be done over a few days/weeks alongside any other priorities you have. 

Not using a planner.

Planners are cheap and there’s plenty of different options if you don’t wanna go with the old-school pen and paper. Prefer using your laptop for planning? You can use an app like Notion which has hundreds of custom templates available online to create the perfect planner.  

If you prefer something simpler, you can check out Evernote – a note taking app that has a to-do list function as well as voice recording. Plus, all these features can sync across with your phone if you have the Evernote app on there as well. Otherwise, check out places like Target, Typo, Big W and more for physical planners. 

Not using app/website blockers.

This is actually something that I didn’t find out about till my second year of uni and it is a huge life saver. A good one is Sidekick App. It works by blocking websites and it also has a feature with a to-do list and calendar for scheduled time blocking and it’s available on the Chrome Webstore. If you use a Macbook and browse on Safari, you can check out a program called SelfControl that blocks any distracting websites with a timer. 

Plus, if you need a way to stop distractions on your phone, a great app to download is Forest. It’s an adorably simple app where you bury a tree when you activate the timer and if you open your phone while the timer is active, the tree you buried dies. It’s a good way to track how you’re going with blocking phone usage as you can see your ‘forest’ with every tree you’ve grown. 

 Not being open to new experiences.

Try new things when you’re in uni or even in high school. Join that club, try that sport and be open to new experiences. You could meet your lifelong friends just by saying yes to an event or trying something different. It’s a great way to meet new people, get to know the campus better if you’re in uni and maybe even gain a new skill.