Each semester at Princeton while affording new opportunities for growth and learning also poses unfamiliar challenges and demands.

Learning practical strategies for starting your courses off strong and managing your time effectively sets you up for a productive, enjoyable, successful semester.

Because Princeton courses start fast and cover so much material, students need to get up to speed quickly. It can also take time to understand and adjust to new demands and get (back) into the swing. Planning, goal-setting (and goal-chasing), establishing productive routines, and developing course-specific approaches to learning set you on a path to success and balance throughout the semester.

Come to the McGraw Center at the outset of the semester for panels, workshops, tutoring and one-to-one consultations to gain insights into Princeton’s academic expectations and demands as well as practical proven strategies for approaching learning, managing time and tasks and engaging with your professors.

Attend our early semester workshops on starting the semester strong and mapping out your semester to better understand Princeton’s distinctive academic culture, its demands and opportunities, and to meet and make the most of them by devoting time to strategic planning from the outset.

Tutoring, which starts the second week of classes, is a great way to establish a routine, meet others in your courses, and ensure a solid foundation for the term while tackling your first p-set.

Academic life & learning consultants work with you to understand your professors’ expectations from the outset, make a doable plan for the term and a balanced routine for each week, and develop a strategic approach to learning and success. They will help you clarify your priorities and fit them develop an approach to the semester that is doable, effective and makes the most of Princeton’s opportunities to grow, succeed, and thrive.

McGraw course jumpstarts for select classes, offered during the first couple weeks of the term (look for announcements from your professor and emails from McGraw), introduce you to the expectations and demands of your courses, alert you to challenges, and equip you with strategies, techniques and tools for meeting them so that you can confidentally enage the course.

Use McGraw-on-a-Page and explore our Learning Library for advice and guidance on What To Do The First Week, creating a Semester-on-a-Page, and learn other strategies for transitioning into Princeton and getting off to a strong start.