This fall nearly 20 million students will head off to college. All of them toting their newly sharpened pencils, pristine notebooks, and shiny laptops ready to soak up all the knowledge available to them in the campus environment. They’ll walk confidently into America’s lecture halls and seminar rooms ready to learn. Um… not quite.
I’ve been teaching at the college level for more than 15 years, and I still love the energy the fall semester brings. I love school so much that I’ve never really left it. But I’m also aware of how panic-inducing a new school year can be. I see the simultaneous excitement and fear on my students’ faces as they start to noodle through their semester and the impending doom of course requirements. They often get so overwhelmed by the prospect of the new semester that they immediately fall behind in their classes. But here’s the thing – once you figure out a system that works for you – a system of studying and keeping track of due dates and balancing the freedom of college life – things get easier. And they keep getting easier every semester.
So here’s my best advice on how to develop useful systems to help you succeed in college. It’s not specific advice on how to ace your physics exam or write the perfect term paper. Instead what follows are my general tips for whether you’ve just moved into the dorm for the first time or you’re on your graduate-school victory lap.
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Treat Your College Experience Like a Job
I give this advice to anyone who asks and even some who don’t. One of the most logical ways to adhere to the vast number of tip lists like these is to ‘work’ a certain number of hours per week on being a college student. It’s generally accepted that for one hour of in-class lecture, you should spend nearly two hours preparing. In other words, going to class is a great idea but so is reading and preparing. If you consider a full work day, five days a week as your goal, you’ll allow for plenty of time to get your classwork done and leave plenty of time in the evenings to soak up the college experience. A 9:00 to 5:00 day gives you 40 hours of work time a week, and on balance, that’s about how much time you should be spending studying and attending class. So set your alarm and try getting your work done during daylight hours instead of frantically burning the midnight oil.
Footnote: I realize that many college students have obligations outside of school. Some have to work and others, like student athletes, have very little freedom with their time. The point here is to set a schedule, a consistent schedule, that works for you.
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Visit Your Professor (Really!)
Office Hours are one of the most under-utilized tools available to students in college, especially undergraduates who are cultivating skills and trying to navigate campus life. With few exceptions, I only see my students during office hours when they’re fearful of failing my course or desperate for help on an assignment. These are fine reasons to visit with your professors, but I would encourage you to make a point to stop by and introduce yourself early in the semester in order to personalize your relationship (and help them learn your name and face). Bottom line: Office hours exist for a reason, and your professors won’t bite.
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Use Your Laptop for Good Not for Evil a.k.a Listen & Take Notes
Many behavioral studies show that our attention will go towards the most interesting thing in a room at a given time. What’s more, when determining which sensory input to prioritize, we tend to focus more on things that are applicable to us personally. So if you’re using your laptop, tablet, etc. to take notes during class and your email and messaging applications are also open, you’ll likely be distracted away from the professor’s lecture whether you choose to reply or not. Your mind could wander anytime to that new pair of shoes you need to buy or pressing online to-do list item even when you know the material you’re hearing will be on the test. Understand that I fully appreciate that laptops and tablets are useful for students, but they should be treated like one-dimensional digital spiral notebooks during class, not the interactive (distracting) tools we appreciate them for outside the classroom. This is why many of my colleagues have banned them, and why I always struggle with banning them myself. So do everyone a favor and use that laptop for good during class time, and shop for shoes after hours.
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Communicate Professionally
Most of us have succumb to the limited character, short-attention span means of communication by way of text messaging and/or social media. I fully acknowledge the need for efficiency using those vehicles. You should, however, use your college experience to either develop or grow your fluency in professional communication. Using greetings and salutations, proper capitalization and punctuation, and an appropriate tone in email to your classmates, professors, and even your parents will help set you on a path to success. These things are important and often serve as people’s first impressions of you. Communications with your professors, internship advisors, and future bosses should never include “btw” or “OMG” or even “LOL,” no matter how many beers you’ve had together. Plus, let’s be honest – shortcuts imply laziness, and you never want to send that subtext to your potential employer or even your mom.
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Sleep, Eat, and Hydrate
I’m really not trying to parent you here but taking care of yourself is extremely important, especially for physical and emotional development during prime college age (read: early 20s). I see it happen every semester right around midterms – students burn out. Balancing school work and college life gets exhausting, but it becomes too late to push the pause button to rest, hydrate, and regroup. Part of consistency and scheduling involves reliable sleep schedules and meals. We know so much about the link between healthy eating habits and sleep and brain function that it should be a given, but sometimes we need a reminder to rest. So rest. Make time to rest, buy a cool refillable water bottle, and treat yourself to fresh fruits and vegetables as often a possible. Your body (and brain) will thank you. And wash your hands too because new semesters mean exposure to new germs. Don’t get me started…
There are so many other tidbits I thought about including here – this certainly isn’t an exhaustive list. Are there things you find/found especially helpful during college or graduate school? I’d love to hear about your tips, tricks, and good study habits!