It depends an awful lot on the nature of the course / how the course is being assessed. Teachers will sometimes complain about students studying towards the assessment - but it it the teachers job to make sure the assessment assesses the stuff that they most wanted to teach / that they think is important.

First thing I do is get a wall planner. Ideally... Two of them. One for each semester. Each of my classes gets a color. Chemistry is yellow. Just because it is. Statistics is blue. Etc. Then I write all my assessment deadlines on the wall planner and highlight the day. Then I scribble out the weekends (since I don't have to go to class on the weekends) and scribble out the study breaks, too.

Then... I have something like... 5x5 of class (5 days per week for 5 weeks) then a 2 week break! Of course... I will end up studying in the study break... But psychologically it will help get me through that initial chunk of classes because I will keep telling myself (and seeing) that I only have x number of classes left. It helps things remain manageable because the end is in sight.

The act of making the wall planner... Choosing your color for each class etc... Is psychologically important, too. It gives you a google-earth kind of overview of the semester. You know that week 6 of class (first week back) is a hard week with 2 major tests... And so on...

From there... It depends, a bit. One of my classes gave me a folder, already. Well, I purchased one. Other classes didn't. I brought a green ring binder folder for biology, because biology is green, obviously. A blue one for stats... I got some subject dividers, too. Sometimes you can get enough so that each week has it's own division. Then you only have 3 lectures worth of content, or whatever for one week... Or sometimes things chunk a bit differently. The course might be organised into 4 modules, or something. But handy to have a slot for tutorial stuff. Handy to have one for past years exams...

It is about personalising things, again. Organising and chunking it. It might feel like procrastination / a waste of time... But it is a kind of 'nesting' thing that I do in the week or two before class actually starts. The ideal thing... Really depends on the nature of the class.... At the end of every class I have things I would have changed about my organisation if I were to do it again...

So... I like things like: Good quality stapler (some of those readings get chunky). I like to put 4 or 5 staples along the edge then fold things back like a book. Actual staples are cheap enough. Hole punch. To get things into your binder. Binders. Color coded / get 4 different colors or however many classes you have. Subject dividers. Sellotape. Worth paying more for the easy-off stuff. I like to tape the outline to the cover of the binder. Maybe... Color code the weeks... Or 'block' of content... E.g., Intro stuff can be yellow, then we do cells, which are blue, then we do embryology which is pink...

Pencil case. I like a nice mechanical pencil because need one for scantron anyway and biology drawing. I actually... Don't use pen anymore, unless I have to. I have a nice mars rubber, too... A little metal ruler for biology. A calculator that I'm allowed to use... Highlighters... Refill (but I don't actually use that an awful lot these days - but you might). Graphing paper (because they only give us one piece in labs and I like to have spare). Unruled paper... Some people like that...

I've got this cardboard folder thing this year... Because it is light and fits easily into my bag. I'm thinking of putting a single days worth of work (lecture notes / readings) into that... To take with me each day. Instead of trekking all my notes for all my classes... I think that will work for me...

Half the fun is figuring out what you think might work for you / personalising things.