In high school, everything was on a schedule from 8 a.m to 2 p.m. After that, it was either homework time or an after-school sport that required good grades. 

But once college starts, time just seems to appear out of nowhere. Classes are scattered all over the day and nothing is set in stone.

The FYS Committee and Associate Academic Deans Yasmine Zeisler and Jonathan Spiro have come up with a way for freshmen to manage their homework time better. The initiative is called, “5 and 5 by 5.”

“The goal of the 5 and 5 by 5 initiative is to get new students to begin studying five hours a day, five days a week by the fifth week of school,” said SOS Staff Coordinator Meghan Hakey.

Hakey also said freshmen seem to be taking the idea well, even though it can be very overwhelming at first.

“I feel as though it is a great idea. The part that will be tough to get students to fully wrap their heads around is that studying doesn’t necessary have to be in the library or a quiet room for five straight hours. It could be anywhere doing anything to further the student’s study habits,“ Hakey said.

Freshman Rachel Howlett said it’s a “crazy amount” of time to put into homework, but that it was a good theory. She said she spends about three hours a day studying.

Junior Melissa Bledsoe thinks that this program can be extremely beneficial for freshmen, but she also thinks its success may depend on a student’s major.

“Some majors may find it difficult. It should be easy for majors that include a lot of memorization, such as nursing, math, history, etc.,” Bledsoe said. “I hardly spend two hours a night doing homework to be honest. Some days I won’t even have to do anything at all.”

Though this is an initiative aimed at freshmen, proponents hope upperclassmen are already doing it, if not studying for more than five hours.

“If you’re an upperclass student, you should already be a pretty good studier. But if you got a first-year student coming in and showing you that they know more, personally I would take that as bit of a challenge and say ‘Oh my goodness, they’re doing such a great job, I need to step up my game a little bit,’” Ziesler said.

To some freshmen and upperclassmen, this may all seem overwhelming and completely impossible.

“I would convince students that it is a theory based on time management and really focusing on your given needs as a student,” Hakey said. “It’s all about learning what your learning style is and making college the educational experience it needs to be.”