Our Experience at LUMS
Require students to keep time logs. I ask each student to record exactly how his or her time is spent, half_hour-by-half_hour, for several weeks. Then I sit and debrief each student, one-to-one, about what his or her time log shows. A crucial focus in the debriefing should be on how time in between scheduled obligations is used. For example, a student with a class from 9 to 10 a.m., and then another class from noon to 1 p.m., has two hours of in-between time. How should the student use this time? He or she may choose to chat with friends or go back to the room to study. He or she may want to do a few errands or do some physical exercise. There is no single correct thing to do. Rather, whatever he or she chooses, the key point is that it should be done with some thought.
Dr. Richard Light, Making the Most of College, Harvard University Press (2002)
A number of freshmen from the class of 2013 at LUMS were placed on Academic Probation, since their CGPA was below the minimum threshold of 2.0 after Fall Semester 2009-10. An email was sent out to all of these students, urging them to make an appointment with Mustafa Abbas (Program Manager, Academic Advising) at the USA Advising Programs Office. The students were asked to get academic counseling, so that the causes of their academic trouble could be identified and a plan of action to overcome these could be discussed. Of the probationary students initially contacted, 30 responded and came in for help. They were to fill out the "Academic Difficulty Analysis Form", which appears on page 108 of this book.
Some enlightening findings emerged from this exercise. Without exception, all 30 students in academic trouble identified that they were "Having trouble adjusting to the pace of academics at LUMS". All 30 also pointed out that they were having trouble coping with the amount of reading in at least one of their first semester reading-intensive courses. This illustrates the importance of developing effective time management skills at the very onset of an undergraduate career at LUMS. Constance Buchanan's observation in interviews with students also generalizes to the LUMS population.
These 30 students were asked to maintain a "Time Log", which is a daily record of how they are spending their time on a half-hourly basis. In a second meeting, the students showed us their logs. Just the activity of logging their time on a time sheet was self-revealing for these students. Many instantly "saw" the lack of time management in their weekly activities, and reported that they had gained a keen insight into how inefficiently they were managing time, and how it could be improved. They were then asked them to make an ideal weekly schedule for themselves, one that they wish they could follow. The contrast between their ideal schedule and their "real" Time Log further illuminated areas were they could improve their time management skills.
