Chemistry at USNA

Time management is key -- you may think you have set aside x hours to study for an upcoming chem quiz, but it will be competing with working with your roommates to strip and wax your deck and get the room ready for an alpha inspection, studying for pro quizzes to ensure you can pass them and meet military performance goals, working with your plebe company mates to complete company area bulletin boards ("doing boards" is one of the many joyous facts of life at USNA that are not generally available at Civ U) to the satisfaction of the upper class, going on recons and doing spontaneous pep rallies, complying with lights out, memorizing tomorrow's menu for chow calls, working on your uniform to ensure it's ready for a uniform inspection, being interrupted dozens of times... So now you have x-y hours to study, and you have to decide on knocking out the paper that's due, doing the calc problem set, studying the chem, and oh yeah, the PRT is coming up and you want to max that but need to work on your run time. There are a million and one things you HAVE to do that are not at all a part of Civ U experience.

The skills you gain in prioritization, time management, focus, doing first things first, doing everything faster and right the first time, working with a team for studying and cleaning, will last you a lifetime and bond you with classmates for that same lifetime. There will be some painful surprises at first, but then you gain traction and will amaze yourself at how much you can get done in ten minutes. Picture you and 3 roommates in the oh-dark-thirty hours jockeying for the 1 shower and 1 sink in the room, gotta shave if you're male, get right uniform on and ready to go ... everything is go, go, go.
 
Capt MJ hit the nail right on the head. The courses aren't hard, God knows I did harder math in high school. Its just you don't have time to do everything. Don't forget also, if you are good at a certain subject you better be ready and willing to help other plebes understand that as well. I'm good at chem and calc, and have plebes in my room all the time for help. Does htat leave me with less time to study? You betcha. Does it mean I turn them away? Absolutly not. I'll take a B on a Chem test if it means one of my classmates doesn't fail his next test.

Time managment is key, its not being smart, its knowing how to manage time.
 
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