nandopz

Hello, I will be interviewing students for my school's journalism class. The questions are all the same and will be limited to 6 per person. The questions are as follows:
1. How often did you study?
2. How many hours a night would you spend on homework?
3. What kind of things did you do outside of school?
4. What resources did you use in order to do well?
5. How did you become a good student?
6. What advice would you give to students aspiring into get into your college?

You can either post replies here, or message them to me. Please include your first name, and the college which you currently attend. If you do not want your name used, I will simply make one up in its place.

Thank you very much to all who help!

ThisCouldBeHeavn

This forum is for students that will be Freshmen next year. Just FYI. I guess I can only answer them about my HS experience (not sure if that's the intention).

1. How often did you study?
I only studied the day before tests, and I only studied for hard classes (AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Euro, APUSH). I also studied for Academic Decathlon (a little) and vocabulary tests (about 30 minutes once a week).

2. How many hours a night would you spend on homework?
Probably about 2.

3. What kind of things did you do outside of school?
I took part in the AMC 12 and AIME in 12th grade. I also followed sports. (I'm not sure if this includes in-school extra-curricular activities)

4. What resources did you use in order to do well?
Reading the textbook is a great start. I didn't do that for AP Bio - that was my only B.

5. How did you become a good student?
It's hard to say. I never really found school to be "difficult."

6. What advice would you give to students aspiring into get into your college?
Do your homework. Know how much you have to study to get an A on a test. Study that much. Hope you get a good enough SAT score. Enjoy yourself and do fun extra-curricular activities. Don't give up.

binks09

From high school of course...
1. How often did you study?
Honestly, in Freshman year, at least 2 hours a night, junior and senior year, maybe 15 minutes a week.
2. How many hours a night would you spend on homework?
Answered above, maybe 5 mins of copying someone elses, rewording some big paragraph from wikipedia, or skimming the sparknotes of some book i was supposed to read.
3. What kind of things did you do outside of school?
Played sports
4. What resources did you use in order to do well?
Wikipedia, other classmates, sparknotes
5. How did you become a good student?
Honestly, I really just knew the "tested material" rather than knowing an overall subject. For example, I would cram for APUSH tests the night before and morning of, pull B+/A-'s, got a 4 on the test, and if I took it now, guaranteed 2. I honestly remember nothing before the 1950's. Other than that my mom pushed the hell out of me, she would basically beat me if I got a B. I came home with a B+ in AP Stats this year and she started crying, saying I had ruined my life and tainted everything good she had created, dear God!!!!. I can only wish my younger brother and sister luck, cause damn, she was HELL to live with... I am counting down the days till I LEAVE!!!
6. What advice would you give to students aspiring into get into your college?
Focus on numbers first... numbers get you noticed and considered, extra curriculars get you in.

dinoian

I'm a current student, finishing up 1st year now...

1. How often did you study?
I have 2 finals tomorrow. The extent of my studying for them has been attending 1 hour of office hours and sharpening pencils. I find my success to be inversely proportional to my amount of study time.

2. How many hours a night would you spend on homework?
I'll spend all the time it takes to get it done, which can be no time to 3-4 hours depending on how much is due.

3. What kind of things did you do outside of school?
I play tennis and have a job as an intramural sports official, and also play quizbowl on a nationally competitive team.

4. What resources did you use in order to do well?
Basically anything I had available. I used the MIT opencourse software to get ahead, and that seemed really good.

5. How did you become a good student?
It just sort of happened. I noticed that I could basically sleep through lower level classes, but also noticed I didn't really learn more than just what I needed for the test. Quizbowl helped me here because it made me want to go deeper into every subject.

6. What advice would you give to students aspiring into get into your college?
Try a lot harder than I did.