How one student used the first half-week of classes to prepare for her whole Spring 2026 semester.

*This student's name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Emily is a junior at William & Mary pursuing a major in psychology and a minor in history. She is also pre-med, hoping to pursue an ABSN program after she graduates.

Since high school, though, Emily has also been navigating serious mental health diagnoses that have had a significant impact on her academics and overall well-being, culminating in her taking time away from college last spring.

This is my second semester working with Emily. Since last semester was her first back after her medical leave of absence, our focus and goals were different: prioritize well-being and stability, ensure resources are in place in case she feels she needs help, and do the best we can to work through classes without exacerbating any of her diagnoses.

With a semester of adjustments and, ultimately, success behind us, we get to start spring on much more solid ground, pooling more of our time and resources toward academics while still keeping a pulse on overall well-being and health.

Here's how we used our first two meetings of Spring 2026 to hit the ground running for the semester.

Step 1: Syllabus Policy Overview

Syllabi are great, but honestly, how many times do students actually look at them after the first week of class?

In my experience both as a student and as a professional working alongside students, I know the answer: very rarely.

Emily is realistic about this likelihood, too, so we spent our first meeting of the semester going over all of her syllabi and creating a one-stop-shop document that puts all the important information for each of her classes in a single place.

For each of Emily's four classes, we added notes about important class information such as late submission policies, attendance expectations and penalties for absences, AI policies, expectations for recurring assignments, and whether quizzes and exams would be administered online or in-person.

This last point is especially important for Emily because she has accommodations through Student Accessibility Services for extra time on quizzes and assessments, and this time is added to online assessments automatically but has to be requested and pre-arranged for in-person assessments. More on that in a bit.

We were also pleasantly surprised to find a little something special in one of Emily's syallbi: an offer for extra credit for emailing the prof a certain fact! It was hidden away at the end of one of the policy sections to reward students who actually read through everything. Nothing like a little bonus to start things off, eh?

Step 2: Schedule Creation

Next, we took the planned assignments section of each syllabus and created a table in our one-stop-shop document that tracks each week of the semester and includes all the relevant for-credit assignments due in each class.

For regularly recurring items, such as a reading quiz held every Friday in one of Emily's classes, we put a note at the top of the page rather than repeating the quiz every single week. No need to gum up the works with something so repetitive.

Why only for-credit assignments? This document is meant to be a snapshot of the big ticket items coming up. If we put in every single reading assignment, for example, the whole thing would become unwieldy and easier to avoid than use. I don't like the sound of that, and Emily didn't, either, so we landed on adding daily goals at the top of the page that help address the finer details like reading assignments and breaking up larger projects into smaller steps. This will get updated on a weekly basis throughout the semester based on our twice-per-week meetings.

The great thing about having all the big stuff for each class on each page is that we can see where the "hell weeks"--the ones that are so busy you don't know what to do with yourself--are going to fall.

That allows us to plan ahead, front-load what we can, and make sure nothing sneaks up on us.

We also added in timely reminders like when we need to schedule Emily's stints at the on-campus testing center for her extra time accommodation.

Step 3: Professor Outreach

William & Mary asks all students who are receiving accommodations to reach out to their professors at the beginning of the semester to discuss their accommodations and make sure everyone is on the same page. This has been a sticking point and cause for anxiety in the past for Emily, so we wanted to get this off her plate as quickly and comfortably as possible.

We crafted messages to the three of Emily's professors who use timed assessments informing them of Emily's accommodations and asking how they'd like communication about using those accommodations to look.

In addition to being required by the university and a nice general courtesy, this step is important because it grants Emily much-needed certainty in navigating what can be nerve-wracking conversations during high-stress times of the semester. A constant part of our strategy is doing all we can to mitigate Emily's anxiety, and having a firm sense of what each professor expects rather than having to guess and second-guess in times of need is a game-changer.

Step 4: Leaving Room for Non-Academics

With all the broad academic planning strokes done, we shifted our focus to the non-academic stuff that might too easily fall through the cracks.

Things like planning Emily's voice lesson slot, getting doctor's appointments and other medical meetings set, and adding the timeline for William & Mary's housing selection process to our calendar helps ensure we won't lose sight of these important to-dos as academic demands ramp up.

It's during this time that we also reviewed Emily's non-academic commitments for the semester and discussed how they play into her overall situation on campus. Emily is very active in her church and leads a prayer group weekly in her dorm. She's also a big fan of tabletop and role-playing games and participates in several clubs dedicated to them. Finally, Emily also hopes to volunteer at a local hospital this spring so she can begin getting some practical experience aligned with her nursing aspirations.

It's a lot to balance, and we had an honest conversation about that fact. We ended in a place where we decided to add things in bit by bit, giving Emily time to get a feel for her classes and assess any impact they might have on her health before adding too much more to her plate.

2 Hours. 1 Plan. Countless Time Saved and Anxiety Avoided.

We accomplished all of this across just two one-hour meetings.

The benefits to putting this kind of plan together go far beyond the obvious of having all of the semester's biggest to-dos mapped out in one place, too.

More than anything else, completing this work gave Emily the chance to look through and start to digest what she'll be expected to do this semester. She's already read through the essay prompts for one of her classes and is thinking about which ones she'd like to use. She also knows all the requirements of as well as the steps and deadlines for the final project in another of her classes before the first full week of classes has even begun.

This is huge because Emily is already coming to each and every one of her classes primed to seek the information she needs for these larger assignments, giving her a clarity and purpose in remaining attentive in those early lectures.

It's hard to know what to pay attention to when you don't know where the class is going, but because Emily took the time to study each class's roadmap before getting started, she's ready to roll with a confidence that most of her peers lack.

Emily also contends with a lot of anxiety about forgetting things or having items fall off her radar. By having this plan in place, she knows there's a place she can check that she's staying on pace with her to-dos and making room for all of her responsibilities in her weekly plans. Like I talked about earlier, it's all about trying to keep that anxiety at bay.

Where We Go From Here

With the major structure of the semester all planned out, our weekly meetings moving forward will focus on filling in the details. We'll break down the big assignments into smaller and more palatable steps, create daily goals for things like reading assignments and class prep, and assess whether Emily's academic responsibilities are impacting her health.

Bridging the Gap

The kind of semester planning Emily and I completed takes a bit of time, sure, but it really is the best thing students can do to set their semesters up for success. Taking the time now to make life easier for yourself when classes ramp up and time becomes a hot commodity is one of the greatest gifts you can give your future self.

Whether you're preparing for your own semester or supporting a student, I highly recommend you make this process part of your process!