The day you’ve waited for… high school is officially over, and you are off to college! It is both exciting and a bit daunting to be leaving home, or at least, the familiarity of your former routine, for the new and unchartered.
There are so many things on your mind right now: your roommate, you don’t know anyone in your classes, what classes will you take, and where are they located anyway? Where is ANYTHING on campus?!
Much of what happens in college happens outside of the classroom; there is little doubt about it. But don’t forget that you are in college to pursue your education. And that means you will be facing a new set of academic expectations unlike any you’ve experienced previously.
Are you ready?
Here are 6 things to keep in mind that will make your academic life more manageable freshman year.
1. Be Responsible
You are solely responsible for yourself in your new surroundings. The professor is there to facilitate your learning and disseminate information, but he/she will not remind you to do your homework or to study for your midterm. It’s all up to you! But professors do encourage you to visit them during office hours, even just to introduce yourself. Don’t wait until you are floundering, although you should not be embarrassed to visit with him/her if you are having academic difficulty.
2. Organize Your Classes
Get organized. If you’re already organized, stay that way. If you went through high school without any organization of your academic priorities, you need to start now. Begin by carefully reading the syllabus for each of your classes (typically, you will receive your syllabi on the first day of class). The requirements of the course for the term are well explained in most syllabi, and often the reading assignments, dates of exams, paper requirements, etc, are all spelled out for you there. Keep the syllabus and use it as your class guide. It’s usually all you’ll get!
3. Don’t Procrastinate
Don’t get behind on your assignments. College can be deceiving in that your class may only meet one, two, or three days a week. So all of your free time in between is leisure time, right? WRONG! For every hour you spend in the classroom, usually between 2-3 hours (sometimes more) are necessary to spend in preparation. Often, the less frequently your class meets, the more reading you will be expected to do for each class session. Often, professors won’t comment on your quality of preparation. Just expect it to show up in your grade, whether there’s a participation component, on the midterm or final exam or on a pop quiz. Know that your progress is monitored, but the professor won’t run to your rescue if his/her gradebook indicates a problem. The night before the midterm exam is too late to catch up on weeks of assignments. You might have been able to get away with this in high school, but you won’t be successful in college that way!
4. Study Consistently
Review your notes each night as part of your preparation for class. It might sound like a huge task, but reviewing your notes from each class each day will give you a huge advantage come midterm and final exam week. Why? Have you ever tried to recall something that happened the day before? The week before? The month before? Four months before? Well, we all know our recall dims with time. Class material is no different. This is easier is some classes than it is in others because the material further on in the semester necessitates that you master the earlier material first. But other disciplines may be focused in separate segments that don’t relate a great deal to one another. The book that you read at the beginning of September will often be as well represented on the exam as the one you finished over Thanksgiving break. Review of material is a great way to keep abreast of the material in class and maximize your study time.
5. Network with Other Students
Know some of your classmates. More and more, colleges and universities are emphasizing collaborative learning and group projects, especially in certain disciplines such as business. You will at some point be forced to work with other students with whom you will share the same project grade, for better or worse. If you know the individuals with whom you will be working, it makes it much easier. Additionally, if you are absent from class for some reason, you should get in touch with someone from your class to get notes or find out what happened. Remember, it’s your responsibility now! Your professor won’t at all take kindly to the answer of “I don’t know, I wasn’t here.”
6. Don’t Mess Up… Seriously!
It can take three years of college to recover from an academically weak freshman year. Nothing is worse than receiving your grades at the end of your freshman year and realizing that you’ll need a 3.99 for the next three years to have a respectable average when you graduate. Yet many students find they are in that unfortunate situation. Some preventative maintenance your freshman year will keep you from falling into that trap.
If you keep these points in mind, you’ll enter your freshmen classes with a much better idea of what is expected of you. Thus, your performance can be better earlier in your college career.
Remember, it’s all in your hands now!
