When going
to college many years ago, I decided to challenge myself by setting
a goal to see if I could graduate in only three semesters, taking
the same classes that people would normally take over a four-year
period. This article explains in detail all the time management
techniques I used to successfully pull this
off.
In order to accomplish
this goal, I determined I'd have to take 30-40 units per semester,
when the average student took 12-15 units. It became immediately
obvious that I'd have to manage my time extremely well if I wanted
to pull this off. I began reading everything I could find on time
management and putting what I learned into practice. I accomplished
my goal by graduating with two Bachelor of Science degrees
(computer science and mathematics) in just three semesters without
attending summer school. I slept seven to eight hours a night, took
care of my routine chores (shopping, cooking, etc), had a social
life, and exercised for 30 minutes every morning. In my final
semester, I even held a full time job (40 hours a week) as a game
programmer and served as the Vice Chair of the local Association of
Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter while taking 37 units of mostly
senior-level computer science and math courses. My classmates would
add up all the hours they expected each task to take and concluded
that my weeks must have consisted of about 250 hours. I graduated
with a 3.9 GPA and also received a special award given to the top
computer science student each year. One of my professors later told
me that they had an easy time selecting the award recipient once it
became clear to them what I was doing.
I wasn't considered a
gifted child, and this was the first time I had ever done anything
like this. I didn't have any personal mentors helping me, I didn't
know of anyone who'd
