The College Journal: A Fill-in-the-Blank Journal for First Year College Students

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The College Journal is an 8.5" x 11" fill-in-the-blank journal specifically designed for first-year college students. It includes prompts and templates to help you raise your self awareness, take financial responsibility, and keep track of important deadlines, meetings, and assignments. 

Is it Hard to Keep a Journal?

Keeping track of life during college is hard, but writing things down can make it a bit easier. The hard part is establishing a writing habit and knowing what to write down and how often. This journal is already planned, includes fill-in-the-blank pages with prompts and templates. This is a quick and painless way to help you stay on top of your to-do list and gain useful insights about your time, money, wellness, and academic responsibilities.

After you complete the initial set-up for your semester’s dates, you might spend between 10 and 30 minutes on your journal each day, depending on the depth to which you choose to use your journal, how pretty and colorful you want to make it, and how exactingly you keep track of your time and finances.

This journal makes it easier for you to keep track of your life, and it has been divided for you into three categories with  prompts:

• Academic Calendar
• Weekly Review
• Dailies

About the Academic Calendar

The Academic Calendar section is where you will copy important dates from your school’s academic calendar and your class syllabi into your journal for quick reference. As academic responsibilities are added, you can add them to your master Academic Calendar. This part of the journal is your one-stop-shop for reviewing all important future dates.

The Academic Calendar pages include three main sections:

• Course Schedule
• Work Schedule
• Planner for the Month of _____________

Your institution (college or university) will usually post an academic calendar on their Web site and in the official Catalog. Your professors will usually publish important class dates in their syllabi or on their online learning management pages, and additionally, student organizations or teams will generally provide a calendar of events or important dates. Before you fill in your academic calendar for each month, be sure to review all those separate calendars. If you also have a job with a consistent schedule, you can fill in your scheduled work days. If you want, add holidays, birthdays, and preplanned social or family outings.

About the Weekly Review

Each week in The College Journal begins and ends in a Weekly Review section, where you will think back on the week that’s passed and think ahead to plan the upcoming week. 

There are three main sections for prompts in the Weekly Review pages:

• Freestyle Journaling
• Looking Back
• Looking Ahead

There are several ways to use your Freestyle Journaling pages, like keeping to-do lists, writing about major events, writing letters, or recapping interesting class discussions. On the Looking back pages you'll get a chance to quickly capture an experience and analyze the way you've been spending your time. When you are Looking Ahead, you will get a chance to set some weekly goals and a weekly budget.

About the Dailies

The Dailies section is the place for your daily entries. These entries will help you keep on top of daily responsibilities, tasks, and habits, like whether or not you’re keeping up with assignments or drinking enough water.

There are 4 prompts on each Dailies page:

• Schedule and Task Tracker
• Time Mini-Tracker
• Button-Size Mini-Memoir
• Personalized Special Tracker

Dailies are organized seven days at time and are nestled between Weekly Reviews. While Weekly Reviews require time and reflection, Dailies should be quick and relatively painless, but there are opportunities for deep thinking if you’re up for it.

Want to read more about The College Journal? Try

The College Journal: Creating a Weekly Budget
The College Journal: Prompts for Freestyle Journaling
The College Journal: Ideas for Your Special Tracker
The College Journal: Supplies on a Student Budget

Want to read more from Amy Lynn Hess and Gypsy Daughter? Try

Diagramming Sentences: A Playful Way to Analyze Everyday Language

Copyright Amy Lynn Hess. Please contact the author for permission to republish.