<p>Many of us want to continue our academic success from high school, but unlike high school there are only a limited amount of As to go around and everyone in the class is accomplished to some level. So how do you go about getting those As? As a student with a 3.9 in Marshall I can tell you that a good GPA is not impossible and will break the guide down into two sections GEs and Marshall courses.</p>
<p>General Tips for any course:
GO TO CLASS!!! people constantly break this rule and its so stupid, your time is spent much more effeciently learning it by a teacher than trying to figure stuff out on your own, plus many classes take attendance. If you go to class you will not have to study that much.
Be a good test taker. This is not high school where you can somehow get an A without ever acing the tests and just turning in homework, The midterms and Final count for at least 50% of your grade so you better make them count.
Two tips for acing tests:
Take the past midterms or practice tests: These always are very similar to the actual ones. Can you ace the practice? Then you can Ace the final.
Know all items on the study guide perfectly: IF you do this you will definetley do well. </p>
<p>GEs: Nobody wants to take these, but let me give you tips to help maximize your GPA in these. It may sound weird but often times GEs ruin a students GPA because they absolutely could not care less about the course material.</p>
<p>As a general tip: Pick the courses with the best teacher ratings in terms of easiness, this has never failed to give me cakewalk classes to an A. Beyond that consider these specifics.</p>
<p>Cat I and II: Take art history, a lot easier to memorize pictures then read 400 page history books
Cat III and IV: take the science you hate the least and go to SI sessions if you need to
V: Look at the ratings carefully these ones vary greatly in terms of difficulty
VI: TAKE ONE WITH THE DIVERSITY REQUIREMENT, people constantly mess this up and then have to take a separate diversity class.</p>
<p>Tips for Marshall:
Important note on BUAD 304: BUAD 304 is a worthless class of pure memorization with no value and almost made me switch out of marshall. Calm down and remember this class is awful and theres no way to ensure you do well unlike all other Marshall classes. All the other classes ive taken have been absolutely amazing with great teachers and have been aceable.</p>
<p>Good grade tips:
Take The practice tests.
Gage the intelligence of your class: you are graded relative to everyone else, the goal is not to achieve at a high level, the goal is to beat other people, make sure you are doing better than most people if you want an A.
<p>As a general tip: Pick the courses with the best teacher ratings in terms of easiness, this has never failed to give me cakewalk classes to an A. Beyond that consider these specifics.</p>
<p>what site should we use? like rate my professor dot com? or the one owned by USC?</p>
<p>Although I remember reading earlier this year in the DT that USC wants to do away with senatecourseguide.com (even though the site isn’t affiliated with USC) because anyone can leave a review for a professor whether or not they have taken his/her course. </p>
<p>Use senatecourseguide but realize one thing. Its WAY SKEWED towards saying classes are harder than they actually are because many of the people that feel motivated enough to post are people who got Fs because they didn’t do anything.</p>
<p>Here’s a mistake everyone makes that is not limited to freshmen. Don’t start major projects and papers last minute, double the time you expect the paper to take and plan on completing the paper/project at least 2 days before its due. I’ve seen a lot of people simply have to turn in things late, and others simply turn in garbage that they pulled on an all nighter. Finish early and take pride in your work.</p>
<p>I thought Mikemac has some really good tips in the following link. Just remove things that are specific to UCLA. But the general stuff still applies to USC.</p>
<p>Freshman year, work to understand how long it takes you to get things done. Reading a chapter in a textbook, writing a five page paper. Once you know how much time it takes, you will be able to schedule your time more accurately. I work best when I am doing things near their due date, but I also know how much time I will need to get a good final project.</p>
<p>Thats a real good point Nikara, nevermind freshmen some seniors still do a very poor time estimating how long a paper takes, in my opinion you should always make a likely estimate and add on 50% more time for murphy’s law.</p>
<p>Another very good tip: Study and work at the library, not in your room. More specifically study at your school’s library because you will be able to go up to others and ask questions about the test. Between the TV, internet, and your roomate along with noise there are way too many things to get sidetracked in your room, plus the library is a great place to meet quality people who care about their grades and who have common interests.</p>