Although you’re probably ready to sit down and enjoy a big Thanksgiving meal, you may be feeling some dread about what you’ll be facing once you return to college after that turkey coma. Finals week. Many of you will have been procrastinating up to this point, falling behind on the study skills you honed in your high school AP classes to prepare for this moment. Luckily, it’s not too late.

If you’re really behind, chances are you may need to pull an all-nighter or two to catch up with your studies. Do it.  Even if you’re just a freshman getting used to your first year on campus, you should still focus on making your grades the best they can be. There are still a ton of scholarships out there if you’re a sophomore, junior, even a graduate student, so don’t assume the loot you won to pay for your first year is out of your reach once you complete your freshman year.

If you’re in better shape than I was in college, you haven’t fallen too far behind and actually have notes from most of your lectures. Make a list and check it twice of all that you need to do before finishing off the semester. Talk to your professors if things aren’t clear before final exam time to feel more prepared and more confident going in to those testing sessions. If you’ve been fairly responsible up to this point, you probably don’t need to be reminded not to cram, but don’t catch the procrastination bug now.

Here are some of our other favorite tips on improving your study skills in time for college exams:

• Stay focused. If you’re less distracted at the library, go to the library. Dorm rooms and apartments are full of potential time-wasters - TV, video games, snacks, chatty roommates. If you can’t study in silence, bring your books and headphones to a less distracting place.
• Figure out your learning style. What may have worked for you in high school may not be relevant anymore. You probably have more work to do, with more opportunities for distraction and non-academic related activities. Figure out how you manage your time best and what makes you the most successful learner, because the study method that works for your friend down the hall may not be the one that will work best for you.
• Keep everything. That syllabus you used as a coaster the first week of class? It could have some important information about final exam week buried in between the professor’s introduction and the required textbooks. File away every handout you get from every class, because they could be useful later. Toss them once the course is over and you’ve turned in that exam.
• Don’t panic. If this is your first experience with finals week, put things in perspective. Yes, you’ll need to do well so that you’re around for finals next semester, but panic will only stress you out and potentially cause you procrastinate even more. Focus, breathe, and take care of yourself. You want to be feeling healthy and alert when you’re staring down at that college exam, and, as prepared as you’re able to be.

Posted: under College Classes, College Life, Tips.
Tags: College Classes, College Life, college tips, study skills, Tips

Comments (0) Nov 18 2009

We’re almost a full week into November, which for many students means the end of the semester is nigh.  It’s likely time to start working on those final papers, or at least generating some paper topic ideas.  It’s better to start sooner than later to avoid pulling all-nighters or finding out too late that the jerk in your English class who’s writing a similar paper has checked out all the relevant books in the library before you get your chance.

But finding something new to say can be challenging, even for graduate students and undergraduate students in upper-division college courses.  If the usual strategies aren’t working, we’ve come across a couple of links that can help humanities students generate ideas for academic prose, or at least provide some much-needed levity while you’re agonizing over your coursework.  Note: you may not want to actually use these to write your papers, since your professor or TA is likely to see some of his or her own writing reflected in them.

The University of Chicago writing program has a tool to help both students and career academics craft a sophisticated argument without backbreaking labor: Make Your Own Academic Sentence.  By simply selecting from drop-down menus of current buzzwords in literary theory, you can stumble upon a unique academic argument, and possibly lay the groundwork for a final paper!  If you’re not sure of just what concepts to piece together, some samples are provided by the website’s Virtual Academic and his counterpart the Virtual Critic.

If you’ve got a great academic sentence, but no research area to apply it to, a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education can help with that.  James Lambert’s article “Heteronormity is Hot Right Now” provides some helpful (and hopefully humorous) guidelines for humanities grad students on declaring their research interests (and possibly finding topics for their first seminar papers). Both of the above are also great for answering that question about your academic interests in your grad school application essays.

As a bonus for grad school applicants, the above links are likely to teach you some new (and obscure) vocabulary, so that’s even more of a time-saver for studying for the GRE. However, if nerd humor is not your taste, but you are concerned about getting papers started early and beating the finals week frenzy, you may want to check out our college resources on study skills.

Posted: under Graduate School, Just for Fun.
Tags: College Applications, Graduate School, Just for Fun, study skills

Comments (0) Nov 06 2009

More material continues to be added to the debate over whether sites like Facebook help or hurt undergraduate students.  Last month, preliminary research by a graduate student at Ohio State University caused a stir by suggesting that the use of social networking websites was somehow connected to lower college grades. Now, a new study published by researchers at Northwestern University, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania suggests that if anything, Facebook users have higher grades than students who do not use social networking sites.

While both studies are very preliminary, their findings have sparked a great deal of discussion and debate.  Many professors and some students regard sites like Facebook as distractions from coursework and assaults on students’ attention spans.  Others see no harm and a great deal of benefit from being able to connect with peers and share ideas and information more easily online.  Some instructors have even incorporated social networking into their curricula and have encouraged students to friend them online.

Social networking sites are becoming an increasingly large part of the lifestyle associated with attending college, and are increasingly being used as tools in college admissions, as well.  Do you use any of these websites?  Have you seen any connection between your internet habits and your grades?

Posted: under College Culture, College News, Just for Fun.
Tags: College Culture, college news, college tips, education study, GPA, study skills

Comments (11) May 08 2009

Here’s something for new college freshmen and college-bound high school seniors to keep in mind: college students and professors often have very different expectations when it comes to grades.  An article appearing earlier this week in The New York Times highlights just how vast this difference can be, citing testimony from students, faculty, and one recent study.  According to the study, one third of students feel they deserve a B or better just for attending class, and 40 percent feel they should earn at least a B by doing the reading for a class.  The faculty members cited in the article disagree with these assumptions, emphasizing merit over effort in awarding final grades.

While many students believe that hard work should result in high grades, many faculty members believe that grades should be based on the finished product, not the effort it took to arrive there.  While a student may pour hours of studying or research into a college exam or paper that only earns a C, the outcome can be perplexing and discouraging.  Often, this experience is vastly different from the experience students have in high school, especially since many undergraduate students are used to being high achievers.  Students perceive grading as unfair and instructors perceive students as having too great a sense of entitlement.

There is another factor the article doesn’t address, which may become a concern for readers of our site–sometimes, students don’t just feel they deserve a good grade, but they might actually need one to pay for school.  Many scholarship awards have minimum GPA requirements, and nearly all financial aid programs require students to maintain satisfactory academic progress, which includes maintaining a certain GPA.  So while a student’s freshmen year of college can be a learning experience and a period of adjustment to a new grading system, it can potentially be a period of fear and worry about the security of their student financial aid.

If you’re struggling to maintain the grades to keep your aid, don’t be discouraged by your professors’ attitudes towards grading.  Talk to your instructor if you’re struggling with a class and explain your concerns.  Many will be more than willing to sit down with you and offer some help, or at least point you in the right direction.  Join a study group and consider signing up for tutoring.  If writing is your problem, look up the university’s writing center–they usually offer free consultations and can help you with the problem that’s standing between you and the grade you want or need.  All of this is part of the increased time management and overall responsibility that comes with attending college, so prepare yourself accordingly and don’t be caught off guard.

Posted: under Back to School, College Culture, High School, Tips.
Tags: college tips, grades, High School, study skills

Comments (0) Feb 19 2009