<p>This has always puzzled me. It’s probably not as complicated as I make it out to be but I’m curious, if there are few quizzes/exams and no graded assignments, how do you know how you are doing in a class?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because I often have nightmares about failing an exam and failing a class. I will be attending San Jose State next year and majoring in Political Science, and I hope to get at least a 3.4/3.5 GPA because I plan to attend law school (hopefully Santa Clara Law.)</p>
<p>Also, any study tips that I could use as a freshman would be very much appreciated. Thank you</p>
<p>You know by your test results and the syllabus which determines how much each test is weighted. It just means you can’t ***k up on any tests, but if you stay prepared that shouldn’t be a problem for the vast majority of classes.</p>
<p>I am a poli sci major myself. This is not something I ever really thought about… poli sci isn’t like chemistry where you can maybe half-understand it, you either know the info and the arguments made in class or you don’t. If you don’t, you know that because you don’t know what’s going on during class and then you go to office hours. It’s not a big deal.</p>
<p>For me it isn’t, which is perhaps why I studied poli sci instead of a science field. I think the argument can be made either way depending on how you interpret it.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean that you can half-understand chemistry and still do well, I meant maybe you can half understand it and get confused and tripped up because you don’t fully understand. Whereas with poli sci the facts are pretty straightforward, if dense, and there isn’t really any way to get confused… you just either learned the material or you didn’t. It’s what you do with the material that is complex, the material itself, usually, is very very straightforward.</p>
<p>If you want to look at it the other way you could argue that you can’t BS chemistry like you can political science because PS is more subjective, but your ability to BS in social science courses is really very strongly curtailed the higher up into the major you get if you’re going to a decent school. It’s not nearly as subjective as you might think.</p>
<p>It was a pretty weird feeling my freshman year (especially first semester). You won’t really “know” how you’re doing–you’ll just have to make sure to keep up with the material. Read the book beforehand and read notes after class.</p>
<p>After the first semester, you’ll have a better gauge of how much you need to study to really comprehend. My first semester, I overstudied to compensate for the insecurity about where I stood and how much I was understanding. Plus I was overly excited about college in general. I’d recommend the same thing to you–study “too much” until you learn how to gauge yourself without daily, mandatory busy work.</p>
<p>You don’t. The idea is that you’ll eventually develop an intuitive feeling ofr how well you know the material.</p>
<p>There’s basically a few transitions:</p>
<p>Elementary -> Middle School: freedom to move between classes
Middle -> High School: freedom to choose <em>what</em> you want to learn and whether or not to do work
High School -> College: freedom to choose <em>how</em> you want to learn</p>
<p>The difference with the how, however, means that you get to choose what you assign yourself and study. As a result, you have to gauge yourself. There’s nobody doing that for you.</p>