Navigating Uni – ADHD after high school

Making life work with ADHD is all about creating structure. A big part of the change from high school to university or college, is how much less structure is provided for you. At school you were given time structures by the school and your parents. Attendance was structured as you were checked and confirmed to be there. Generally, life as a high school student is heavily structured by parents and teachers.

Bring on Uni! At Uni you get treated as an adult. This means that there are now just a series of timetable and deadlines but how you choose to follow them (or not) is up to you. The uni is only concerned with whether you meet their achievement targets such as passing grades and sometimes attendance. This can be a problem with ADHD as the structures given by school and parents drop away and you are on solo. The good news is you can notice the change in structure and choose to replace the missing bits.

1. Master Time Awareness: ADHD = With ADHD it can be easy not to see time until there is too little of it. (think your last late assignment!). Master this by starting the semester with:
   • every key uni date (lectures, holidays, withdrawals, and week numbers).
   • every due date (assignments, exams etc)
   • every personal date (birthdays, anniversaries, etc)
   • Set an alert to check your calendar at least daily (ideally between each calendar task)
2. Master Time Control: Having the deadlines is a great start. Now we need to see when and how the work that delivers the deadline can happen.
   • For each due date look where it falls and see if you would rather deliver it a bit earlier due to other key date conflicts (eg birthday, conflicting due dates etc)
   • Look in your course information to find the type of assignment/exam and then break it down into steps. Plot those steps into your calendar.

Congratulations! If you have followed the steps above, you will have succeeded in removing one of the major threats to the uni student with ADHD. There are still other structures or systems that need to be accounted for including how you capture, process and implement learning but you can see more about those topics in future posts. Alternatively you could check out the Connect ADHD Uni Program here.

Have a great semester!