I am a quarter of the way through my first semester of college, and I have gone on roller coasters with less ups and downs.
These past four weeks at Southern have provided me with my fair share of successes and failures. I'm sure anyone who has been in my shoes before knows that getting into the swing of things in your first year of college is no walk in the park.
Thankfully, I have experienced a few successes so far this year. I have gotten As on my two Geography quizzes so far, I have a very good grade in my Inquiry class (thank you Professor Guarino), and I got a 100 on my first History exam that I took the other day. I will admit that none of these triumphs have come easily. I have put more hard work and effort into these few weeks than ever before on anything in my life. College is a completely different game than high school. I can no longer cruise along and still receive an A. I studied for hours for that history exam and for a good amount of time on those quizzes as well. Writing my blog posts every week probably takes up the most time from my schedule, but I always make sure I allot myself enough to get the job done well. It is all of these factors that will continue to push me toward success.
However, we all have slip ups that lead to our own personal failures. I am obviously no exception. My largest downfall so far actually occurred yesterday. I studied the night before and the morning of for my first Geography exam, but I wasn't sure what exactly to study. The way my professor teaches is a little unusual. His slides tell stories more than give direct facts. This ambiguity forced me to decide which details I deemed important enough to study. That was where I made my mistake. I instead should have studied every bit of information whether it seemed relevant or not because the majority of what I disregarded was on the test. I only studied about 75% of what was on the exam and I am extremely disappointed with myself and dreading the results.
I had quite a few articles to read this week from calnewport.com with different tips on how to make your college career the best it can be. The author provides us with blog posts that focus on studying, organization, paper writing, time management, test taking, etc. However, the post which I found the most eye opening and helpful was one called "A Definitive Guide to Acing Your Schedule". There is an idea mentioned in this article that I have never thought of before. He informs the reader that, "students' study habits are heavily influenced by their peers." He goes on to mention how you tend to take on the habits of those around you. I had never realized this before, but he is completely correct. When I am with friends who just want to socialize, I never get anything done. When I am by myself, I am extremely productive. I will definitely take this idea into consideration when I have an assignment due but want to spend time with my friends at the same time because it simply is not possible.
This post also mentions a different topic which the author claims to be a fool-proof method to acing all of your classes. He explains it in only two simple steps:
It is such an incredibly simple, yet brilliant idea! These are the three people who have the most knowledge on the subject, so who could possibly give better advice then them? It is an easy solution, but I have never heard of anyone doing this before. I truly believe that if anyone did this, he or she would have all of the necessary knowledge to pass even the most difficult of courses. Needless to say, I will be trying this method out in the future.
- Setup a separate chat with your professor, your TA, and a student who took the same course in a previous semester.
- In each chat session, ask the same question:
If you were to write an advice guide about doing incredibly well in this class, what would the chapters be?
I am trying to keep my goals small at this point by taking my schooling one day at a time. For example, today my goal is to get all of my homework done ahead of schedule so that I have none to do tomorrow. Next week one of my goals will be to study for my first Algebra exam. By accomplishing these smaller goals one step at a time and applying all of the new tips I've received from calnewport.com and my weekly time sheet, I will be slowly but surely trudging my way up the mountain to the pinnacle of success.
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