College Struggles, Oh My

congrats on the OChem quizzes - you're obviously quite smart, that course is the bane of a lot of college kids' existences! were you one of those people who always did well in school without having to study? it could be as simple as just having to get a study routine down. if you're the type who does well in study groups, perhaps you can form a group with some of your classmates. are you approaching OChem any differently than your other classes? with the classes you aren't doing as well in, did you go into the quizzes feeling like you understood the material, or did you know you didn't have a firm grasp of it beforehand? this may sound strange, but if there are concepts you feel like you don't have a good handle on, try googling for explanations. i did that a lot early on in law school - whatever the subject, chances are, if you aren't getting it, a bunch of other people have struggled with it, too, and you may find that someone else has explained it in a way you find easier to understand.

 

Honestly, I'd argue the only way you're going to do well in college/uni is to study and actually do your work. In high school, like red said, many of us come from a mentality where we can get great grades without having to do much work. After high school, that all changes. And trust me, I've tried procrastinating in every single way I could think of to still get good marks... it just doesn't work. You'll still have tests and assignments you'll work your ass off for and end up not doing well on, but in general, doing all your work is a good way to boost your grades.

As for how to study, well, that's different for everyone. I personally can't stand to just read over a book or notes; I much prefer to do practice problems or rewrite something out or go into an empty classroom and pretend to teach the material to a friend. Some things work for some people and some things just don't. It really is up to you to test some methods out and see what helps you learn best. In general though, some methods are better for certain subjects than others (i.e. sitting and memorizing a math textbook probably won't help you much on a long-answer test), but of course there's exceptions to every rule. And I think in general, being able to teach the material to someone else is both a great method of review for yourself and reassures you that you actually know what you're talking about (plus, you get to feel helpful )

I think another important thing to note is that it's totally fine to be struggling a bit since you've first started; nearly everyone does coming out of high school. College/uni is a different ballgame that takes some adjusting to, so don't beat yourself up over a couple of bad marks. I certainly wasn't a great student in my first two years of school, but in some of my classes this year I'd say I'm definitely one of the better students.

You can do it, so don't sweat what's already happened too much. Take your mistakes and learn from them. Good luck!

 

Here is my experience, learning the hard way after failing 2 courses on my first year and being put on academic warning:

- Show up for class, all of them.
- Do the required reading and more.
- Do whatever assignment you have, as best as you can.
- Establish a schedule and stick to it.

And I am not sure if you have this problem, but, make sure what you are studying actually:

1. Interest you. Don't spent money and time wasted on something you don't like and probably hate. You won't do well in it, and even if you do, you most likely won't use that knowledge later on due to how you feel about it.
2. Something you can handle. My experience of going to a japanese language class...as much as I like the language, my brain simply can't process all 3 types of alphabet (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) that the language use all at once... So know yurself, and choose something you can actually get smething out.

 

I´ll give some of my advices, as they are my advices, may/ may not work for you:

1st) It doesn´t help to study only before exams.

2nd)You are no longer a school student, you are being prepared to be a scientist, engineer, research etc of something and what does this means? That you gonna have to do most of the job by yourself. Teachers will be there manily to give directions, like road signs - they will teach you to go faster, slow, to the right, to the left -, but you gonna have to do the job.

3rd) Books? You don´t need to read all of them. Choose the best one for each class.

4th) as you are being prepared to be a researcher or something like this, forget about grades.

5th) don´t stop having fun and sleep well. Also, have breaks each hour and each shift you are studying. Like, i only can handle study 3h/shift. So each hour I stop 5-10 min and each shift I stop for 30 min to 2 hours(depending on the day).

6th) and most important: how do you study? Some people can understand only reading, others have to write. For me, I MUST write. And how do I do it?


First> i create questions of the book and write it down these questions(in a separate paper) and I indicate the page and the paragraph of the question. And they are silly questions like:

• Why can´t [....] do this or that? (pg. 42 - 6)¹
• What is the importance of [...]?
• Differentiate [...] from [...].

¹ page 42, paragraph 6th.

Second> i read these question with the chapter in the book and create some topics(write it down also). You don´t need to create topics for every questions, but for the main ideas.


Than, after all this, you fix it.

Even picking one book you won´t have enough time. So, you gonna have to developed something that I call sensibility, which is: select the main chapters and/or the main part of chapters. Like, you are studying bacteria and you have two chapters to learn:

Concept of Bacteria and Classification of Bacteria.

Probably you should choose chapter 1(Concept of Bacteria), because, how you gonna differentiate bacterias if you don´t know what a bacteria is?

And what do I do with the other chapter? Is better to copy what teacher is saying in class. So, in class, you write it down the main ideas of what the teacher is saying. For test, you rewrite it down what you wrote, trying to resume the ideas of chapters you couldn´t study well.

And why do I do all of this?


Learning envolves thre stages: analysis>synthesis>review.

Analysis> you gonna break the book in pieces, in ideas. > this is the part you create the questions. Here you must have patience, because it is on this stage you will have the feeling of: I´m not learning. But slowly things will start to make sense.

And why do we create questions? Easily: knowledge is born in question, doubt, not affirmation, stattement. Think about it: if I wanna know something about you, I don´t give a stattement, I´ll ask you a question. The same thing happens here.

Synthesis> you gonna stick,glue,attach each idea. Is the stage you create the topics

Review> memorization of what you learned.


I´ll give you an example of what I do:


The bacterial cell is surrounded by a lipid membrane, or cell membrane, which encloses the contents of the cell and acts as a barrier to hold nutrients, proteins and other essential components of the cytoplasm within the cell. As they are prokaryotes, bacteria do not tend to have membrane-bound organelles in their cytoplasm and thus contain few large intracellular structures.

Bacteria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


1. What does surround the bacteria cell?

2. Indicate the function of the cell mebrande.

3. Why bacteria don´t tend to have membrane-bound organelles?



Btw, I´m a law student. so this works for me. Don´t know how it is to other people and others sciences.

For more information look about the SQW3R method.



---------- Post added 13th Sep 2012 at 10:31 AM ----------

Oh, btw , this stress happens to everybody and another tip: work hard in the main classes.

"silly" classes doesn´t worth to study too much hard.

 

Everyone seems to have covered stuff well!!

I'll just say that if there's any tests you wanna do bad on, they are the first ones. Now you know you have to improve & that you need to make changes to do better.

I kinda failed my first important exam last year at University too, thankfully it was the first one so nothing was lost yet. Since then I established a strict schedule and you know it was a nice kick up the backside for me haha.

Best of luck!

 

The first two you listed are extremely important.

You have got to show up to every class to have any chance to be successful, period. Especially if there's an attendance component to your final grade. Being a second year student and a tutor, I have seen my fair share of people that show up to class sporadically, and end up failing. Plus, you're just wasting your own money if you don't show up to class. It also really helps to sit in the front of the room, if possible. Studies show students who sit in the back of a room/lecture hall don't do as well as those who sit in the front.

Reading the textbook is also necessary. Lecture is only part of a course -- the book fills in gaps that can't be covered in class. You'll also know what's going on in class if you do because many professors discuss certain things that are from the text (at least my professors do). Read it.

---------- Post added 13th Sep 2012 at 11:06 PM ----------

Also, seek tutoring.

Most students that go to tutoring end up getting a pretty decent grade.

 

- Dry-erase board is my best friend. I save paper and it's not messy. I use it frequently, whether it be for studying biology or organic chemistry. It's useful especially for the latter; I do a bunch of problems on the white board involving resonance, structural isomers, etc. For classes like biology, I rewrite my notes, which sometimes contain processes (e.g. Inhalation and exhalation, brain routing involving tactile senses). I write the process down first, erase, then do it from memory.

- Rewriting notes. It might seem daunting to do so, but at least you can organize them better if you didn't write them well the first time. I also find that this process helps me retain the information.

- To add to what redstormrising said, I think Googling stuff you don't understand does help. I even went on YouTube one time to find a video that explains the steps of the heart cycle. Watching videos engage your auditory and visual senses, making you remember stuff more. It reminded me of my anatomy professor's motto; the more neurons you engage, the more you're likely to retain xD

- I write my daily agenda in a pad/post-it notes. Sometimes I write it on my dry-erase board too, just in case I misplace my list.