What no one will tell you about college.
Nov. 24th, 2009 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI'm tutoring high school students, prepping them for the SAT.
I think what they need as much as good SAT scores are some good college strategies. Share yours here.
So here it is:
What no one will tell you about college (until you get there).
1 - Want to increase your scores 5% without doing anything?
Sit in the same seat every day (especially those 150-student lectures) in the front row. You'll pick up an easy 5% in class participation just because the prof can see you. And statistically, the front row students are the ones that get A's, the second row B's, and so on all the way to the back. (Psst: if there's little time between classes, pick a seat near the door.)
2 - Talk to your professor outside of class.
Disagree with your prof? Good! Take it to her/him at the end of class. Walk your prof back to the office to discuss it. The students who go to office hours of their own free will are the ones who get letters of recommendation for grad school/scholarship applications. The professor remembers you, and the class is far more interesting.
3 - Bored? Ask a question.
Every time I found myself zoning out during a class I would raise my hand and ask a question, pulling the class in a direction that was interesting to me. :D
4 - Avoid clock-watching.
Watching the clock in a slow class is torture, saps your energy, and is obvious to your prof. Avoid the clock-watching tick by sitting where you can't see the clock.
5 - High school is for taking the classes you hate. College is for taking the classes you love.
Don't be a masochist -- if you can avoid that hated math class by taking a much more interesting astronomy class, do it. Your grades will be better. You'll learn more. And what you'll learn will be something you can carry with you because it's something you care about.
6 - Know thyself. Work with your habits rather than against them.
Make your life easy. If you suck at mornings, don't take that 8:30am Japanese class. If you're a morning person, don't drag yourself through a two hour afternoon class. If you read slowly, don't pack your schedule to the wall with lit and history classes but throw in art class with no reading at all.
7 - Avoid schizophrenia and be efficient: Take related classes at the same time.
If you need to take Ancient Indian history and Indian literature, see if you can take them the same quarter so they support each other. You can use your readings from Indian history as sources for your Indian lit class and vice versa. Or take classes that relate to each other in some way. Take that Poli-sci class the same quarter you're taking Macroeconomics, rather than the quarter you're taking Arthurian literature.
8 - If the class you want is booked, show up anyway, books in hand, and participate vigorously.
The professor would rather have you as an extra student than the disinterested slackers in the back. Be sure to sign up for a back up class though, and show up for that, too. Makes for a busy first week of the quarter but it works.
9 - Give yourself flexibility: Plan, plan, plan.
When you're not sure of your major, take classes that apply to all three of your most likely majors first. I got out an excel spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet I copy-pasted a complete listing of available classes to fill each of my requirements. Then I looked at "crossover" classes that covered requirements for multiple majors and bolded them. From that group, I highlighted the ones that sounded interesting. From those I went online and checked when they were offered, and figured out which ones were offered every quarter and which were offered rarely -- and took the rare ones first.
10 - The one I learned too late: Build a relationship with professors who are top in their field by taking more than one class with them.
If you're going on to grad school, the professors you took 2, 3, 4 classes with are the ones best equipped to write letters of recommendation. If they're a bit of a name, their opinion carries weight.
I think what they need as much as good SAT scores are some good college strategies. Share yours here.
So here it is:
What no one will tell you about college (until you get there).
1 - Want to increase your scores 5% without doing anything?
Sit in the same seat every day (especially those 150-student lectures) in the front row. You'll pick up an easy 5% in class participation just because the prof can see you. And statistically, the front row students are the ones that get A's, the second row B's, and so on all the way to the back. (Psst: if there's little time between classes, pick a seat near the door.)
2 - Talk to your professor outside of class.
Disagree with your prof? Good! Take it to her/him at the end of class. Walk your prof back to the office to discuss it. The students who go to office hours of their own free will are the ones who get letters of recommendation for grad school/scholarship applications. The professor remembers you, and the class is far more interesting.
3 - Bored? Ask a question.
Every time I found myself zoning out during a class I would raise my hand and ask a question, pulling the class in a direction that was interesting to me. :D
4 - Avoid clock-watching.
Watching the clock in a slow class is torture, saps your energy, and is obvious to your prof. Avoid the clock-watching tick by sitting where you can't see the clock.
5 - High school is for taking the classes you hate. College is for taking the classes you love.
Don't be a masochist -- if you can avoid that hated math class by taking a much more interesting astronomy class, do it. Your grades will be better. You'll learn more. And what you'll learn will be something you can carry with you because it's something you care about.
6 - Know thyself. Work with your habits rather than against them.
Make your life easy. If you suck at mornings, don't take that 8:30am Japanese class. If you're a morning person, don't drag yourself through a two hour afternoon class. If you read slowly, don't pack your schedule to the wall with lit and history classes but throw in art class with no reading at all.
7 - Avoid schizophrenia and be efficient: Take related classes at the same time.
If you need to take Ancient Indian history and Indian literature, see if you can take them the same quarter so they support each other. You can use your readings from Indian history as sources for your Indian lit class and vice versa. Or take classes that relate to each other in some way. Take that Poli-sci class the same quarter you're taking Macroeconomics, rather than the quarter you're taking Arthurian literature.
8 - If the class you want is booked, show up anyway, books in hand, and participate vigorously.
The professor would rather have you as an extra student than the disinterested slackers in the back. Be sure to sign up for a back up class though, and show up for that, too. Makes for a busy first week of the quarter but it works.
9 - Give yourself flexibility: Plan, plan, plan.
When you're not sure of your major, take classes that apply to all three of your most likely majors first. I got out an excel spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet I copy-pasted a complete listing of available classes to fill each of my requirements. Then I looked at "crossover" classes that covered requirements for multiple majors and bolded them. From that group, I highlighted the ones that sounded interesting. From those I went online and checked when they were offered, and figured out which ones were offered every quarter and which were offered rarely -- and took the rare ones first.
10 - The one I learned too late: Build a relationship with professors who are top in their field by taking more than one class with them.
If you're going on to grad school, the professors you took 2, 3, 4 classes with are the ones best equipped to write letters of recommendation. If they're a bit of a name, their opinion carries weight.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-24 07:02 pm (UTC)-Get your gen eds out of the way first. You will forget your calculus or your french or whatever if you don't do them your freshman year.
-Always allow yourself at least one class a term that you like. It's great if it's in your major- but it'll help balance out your homework when midterms hit, and you can allow yourself that class's work as a reward for doing the stuff you hate or the stuff that bores you.
-If you're flunking out of your biology major, don't switch to a double major in Russian and Chinese. It sounds like common sense- but people have actually done this.
-Know the academic catalog inside and out. Own your own copy, mark it up with what credits you've taken and what you need. When you claim a major, memorize the requirements for it and overlap as many of those with your gen eds as you can.
-If you're planning on going to grad school, know what their preferences are as soon as you claim your major. Most Christian seminaries, for example, expect to get second-career students with no religious education, so as an undergrad you can major in something to give you breadth- or major in religion, specialize in world religions, and take as many classes in other disciplines as you can. Some programs will want you to specialize as narrowly as possible as an undergrad. Find out!
-If you took French in high school, don't take Spanish in college, and vice versa. Don't switch from one romance language to another- you *will* answer your Spanish prof in the French you took in high school.
-When it comes to final papers for classes- if you take classes that overlap, you can do one set of research for two papers. You can't write just one paper, you have to write both- but if they involve a lot of the same content, it'll cut down on your time. You can also do this with classes in different semesters- just hold on to all the research you do as you go through.