YouAlberta
There’s a point in university when things suddenly get very real. Whatever form it takes, eventually you meet your first big assignment. The one that makes you look at the syllabus, look at the assignment, look back at the syllabus and wonder how something worth this much of your grade appeared so casually.
Maybe it’s a 2,000-word paper worth 30%. Maybe it’s a math assignment where Question 1 somehow has parts (a) through (j). Maybe your professor assigns 200 pages of reading and casually says, “We’ll discuss this next class,” as though you don’t have four other courses.
Or maybe it’s your first group project.
You open the group chat and send:
“Hey everyone! When are we free to meet?”
Seen by five.
No replies.
Great start.
I remember thinking these assignments were mainly tests of how smart you were. If I understood the course, surely I could sit down, lock in for a few hours and somehow figure the whole thing out.
University has taught me, several times, that this isn’t exactly how it works.
First, figure out what you’re actually doing.
One thing that makes a big assignment feel so intimidating is looking at the entire thing at once.
“Complete the final project” isn’t exactly an encouraging item to have sitting on your to-do list for three weeks.
So before I actually start, I try to figure out what needs to happen between nothing and done.
Maybe that means choosing a topic, finding sources, making an outline and writing. For a problem set, maybe it’s figuring out which concepts I actually understand before discovering which ones I definitely don’t. For a group project, it might just mean getting everyone in the same room, which can sometimes be the most ambitious part of the assignment.
Once you break it down, the giant assignment usually becomes a bunch of smaller, much more normal tasks.
Still annoying, perhaps. But normal.
Starting doesn’t have to look impressive.
I used to think “working on an assignment” meant sitting down for several hours and making serious progress.
That sounds great until you’re waiting for the perfect three-hour window and suddenly it’s 11 p.m. the night before.
Now, starting can mean almost anything.
Read the first 20 pages. Try one problem. Make the PowerPoint and give the slides some questionable working titles. Open the document and dump your thoughts into it before you forget them.
Between classes, work, extracurriculars and everything else university somehow convinces us we have time for, I’ve learned that the magical uninterrupted afternoon doesn’t always arrive.
But 20 minutes usually does.
And there’s another benefit to starting early: you get to discover that you’ve completely misunderstood something while there’s still time to fix it.
A humbling experience, but a useful one.
Let the first attempt be messy.
Your first attempt probably isn’t going to be your best one, and I think that’s something I had to get comfortable with.
The calculation might be wrong. Your presentation structure might make no sense. You might get halfway through the reading and realize you retained approximately three sentences. Your group might spend an hour developing an idea only to realize it doesn’t work.
That doesn’t mean the hour was wasted.
Sometimes figuring out what doesn’t work is the thing that finally gets you somewhere.
It’s much easier to fix a bad draft, a wrong calculation or an ugly slide than it is to fix something you haven’t started.
Seriously, just ask!
I think one of the strangest things about university is how everyone looks like they know what they’re doing.
Then you talk to them.
They don’t.
If you’re confused, ask your professor or TA. Go to office hours. Talk to classmates. Use the academic resources around campus. If it’s a group project, please communicate before four people independently create four versions of the same slide deck.
And read the rubric before you submit — not five minutes afterward, when it suddenly becomes the most fascinating piece of literature you’ve ever encountered.
And then … you submit it.
Eventually, you have to stop.
Maybe that means clicking submit. Maybe it’s presenting in front of a room. Maybe it’s putting down your pencil while still being only 73% confident in Question 6.
Maybe you absolutely crush it.
Or maybe the grade comes back and you stare at it for a few seconds longer than medically necessary.
Either way, you learn something beyond whatever the assignment was actually about.
You start figuring out how you work.
Maybe you need an outline before anything makes sense. Maybe you focus better in the library. Maybe you need to talk through a problem with someone. Maybe you learn that starting at 11:47 p.m. the night before is, despite repeated experimentation, still not a particularly successful strategy.
I think that’s one of the quieter parts of transitioning into university. Your first big assignment feels enormous because, well, it’s your first one. When you haven’t done it before, it can almost feel like a test of whether you’re cut out for university in the first place.
It isn’t.
You finish this one. Then eventually, another one shows up.
The assignments don’t necessarily get easier. You just get a little better at knowing what to do when something feels difficult. And eventually, you’ll probably find yourself telling a first-year student:
“Don’t worry. It’s really not that hard.”
Which is funny.
Because apparently, we all become liars eventually.