kenf1234

College has lots of distractions. Lots of new friends, things to do and see. It can be exciting and intense, especially the first semester. Students are also, very often, blindsided by the difficulty of courses, especially in math and sciences.

apumic

This is true, but most students on here who are asking questions like that are going to be over-studying anyway. If the audience were primarily low SES, 1st generation, inner-city kids, my advice would be different, but most students here are among the highest-achieving. They should focus on other areas of life, not be overly involved in academics during the summer. People who push themselves too intensely and never relax are not going to be healthy, well-adjusted adults any more than the opposite extreme.

kelsmom

At least in my experience, profs don't spoon feed you. You are responsible for everything, not just the things your prof goes over in class. This is a bit of a surprise even for excellent students, because most high school teachers only test on what they have covered or emphasized.

Study groups are life-savers. What you don't know, someone else will. I learned so much from my study partners.

Don't procrastinate (yes, I know this is on everyone's post; there's a reason).

If you have never had to figure things out for yourself, please start now. Don't call your parents for help with every little thing. Of course it's good to ask them things ... but when you can do it on your own, you should. It's good practice for life.

Stand up for yourself. Don't let life "happen." If you want something, go get it. If you don't get what you want, ask why not ... that's the only way to learn. Ask how you can do it better next time. Ask what you need to do to get it in the future. Don't assume you can't do/have something. Try! This applies to grades, jobs, etc. Learning how to get along in life is an important thing to do in college.

And remember to have fun!!!

beanieboo

i 100% agree with waht apumic said.. most kids on this site do not need to be told not to procrastinate. i actually think i work better during pressed time. if i tried to start writing a paper now that was due next week i wouldnt do a good job on it, its too far in advance. ive learned how to start at the last possible moment i need to do a GOOD JOB on it.

i dont believe reading material ahead of time is necessary. and for my school at least, we dont get our book list until 2 weeks before the semester starts. reading before lecture is a good idea, the night before being perfect because you will have any questions fresh in your mind. i personally could never bring myself to read a chem/math book. itd be hard to understand and what if the prof decides to completely skip over some subjects!

kids here dont need to be told to study, they know to. so GO HAVE FUN. if you want to try out the college scene go out to a huge party and get drunk! if thats not youre thing, stay in or explore the surrounding area. if you find the party scene is for you just restrict it to thursday/friday/sat nights and get all of your work done beofre the weekend, cuase youll never wanna work then. BE SOCIAL, dont disregard the importance of the first month socially

kenf1234

Yes, the first month of college is very important socially. So wouldn't it make sense to study in advance some of the course material to free up more time for socializing?

Upsilamba

I have a question regarding class attendance. When is it okay to skip class, and when is it better not to? I assume attendance would be more important if participation was part of a grade (I took a couple classes at WashU this summer, and points were deducted if you skipped class, but that might have just been because the classes squished into four/five weeks instead of a whole semester), but other than emergencies I'm pretty much clueless. If I'm not feeling well, how do I decide whether to go to class or not? In what other situations is it okay to skip? Thanks.

burgler09

Its ok to skip class when you are taking an easy class and you know you can handle missing a lecture, take for example I'm in o-chem 2 and also in a computer class.. I wouldn't skip ochem2 if I had the flu.. but I'd skip my computer class because I could easily skip and still know the matieral.

A good rule of thumb is to never skip.. but we all know how that goes Just skip at your own discretion

MBP

As a freshman one week and one day away from finals week, I would say what I most regret is taking classes that don't interest me.
I'm in a special situation where it wasn't really my choice as to what classes to take, but that's rare.
taking classes that aren't interesting makes classes that you do like less enjoyable.

and NEVER take a class because you think it will be an easy A. gpa boosters aren't worth it, and they can really kill you if you turn out to be wrong and are left taking a class that you don't care about that you have to work in.

tokenadult

2nd Judas

Thanks tokenadult helpful

marnimom

Another skill is the ability to accept constructive criticism. If a professor notes a comment on a paper or suggests that your project requires more work, don't get defensive and blow him or her off. Instead, take advantage of office hours to meet with the professor to get a fuller understanding of how your work can be improved.

Also, supplemental reading is not always optional. The "A" student is the one that has done not only the required reading, but the supplemental reading.

Finally, you are not there to memorize facts and spit them back out to the professor. You've got to learn the facts, consider how they apply and gain a complete, rather than superficial, understanding.

mafool

I will respectfully disagree with the assertion that most who are reading this will over study anyway. I suspect that a significant percentage have never really had to study in the organized, focused way that they should master in college. (One wise college admissions counselor once told me that students who got Bs in highschool were often better students in college than their 4.0 HS counterparts for this reason.)

So, consider the idea of reviewing your notes every night. Rewrite, condense and organize your notes: they will make more sense come exam time, the process requires that you understand what you are organizing and you will know right away where the problems are (that's when you check the book or go to office hours) instead of discovering that you don't understand something the night before the test.

Also, actually outline your required reading (you've heard about it all through high school, never had to do it...now's the time). This helps you actively interact with the material you are reading, and means you will have FAR less to study when exam time comes.

kenf1234

Thanks for saying this so I didn't have to.

It depends on the high school you're coming from. It depends on the university you are going to. It depends (a lot) on the subjects you are studying. But a lot of students are in for a huge shock when they get to college.

Seriously, if you are thinking about pre-med, why not get the chemistry textbook and read through a few chapters. If you find it completely incomprehensible, completely unpleasant, do you really think it will become fascinating in a classroom setting?

churning

Network, network, network. That is learn at least 1-2 people in class's phone number/become friendly. Why? Because when you miss class/notes there is someone to call to give you the notes or to even bounce ideas off of. If you're friendly people will be willing to share things with you and you to them.

juststoppingby

If you oversleep and miss a class, check the course schedule to see if there is a later class that day by the same prof in that subject. I did that a few times. While your own class may be a little bit behind or ahead of the professor's later class, you still will get most of the info you missed by oversleeping.

A wise biology professor told us that for every hour of lecture, you have to study 2 hours in order to achieve an A. It's just a good rule of thumb.

I find I do procrastinate, but I also want As, so once when I was only taking one class, I procrastinated until 4 days or so before a test, and then 'crammed' for 12 hours a day. Of course, I was only taking that one course, and it was math and that is a hard subject for me. You have to experiment to find out how long you actually need to study in order to make that A. You also have to experiment to find out the best way you study. For me, I have to draw pictures or flowcharts of what a particular paragraph in the textbook is saying. I can't tell you the number of times a picture I had created which I had committed to memory allowed me to pick the correct answer on a test, even on those multiple-choice tests with 2 possible choices that are so very similar. Mneumonics also work very well for me.