College Advice (How to be Successful)

College is all fun and games in the movies right? but what is it really like? let me give you a students perspective...(from a deans list students perspective)

School is a necessity now a days to get a good paying job, and to live the life that you've always dreamed of. You want to buy nice things for your self, settle down in a nice place live in a city or live in a big house some where with a nice car, invest, travel, give, all these different things right?

So how do we get there?

First lets start with the social aspect because this is a biggy in college for a lot of people

A lot of times the people you meet in college are the people you'll be friends for a very long time, they'll be the people you invite to your wedding or to your graduation party, they'll be your network to find different opportunities in the future, they could be the people you move in with when you graduate you never know.

But hey choose wisely because, exactly that, you never know...

Your time is valuable so spend it wisely. now you need to make a community, have things to do and people to do them with so don't become a recluse but don't spend all of your time socializing either, believe me there are plenty of things to do and you will have time later on, but if you have a test coming up study for that and when you need to go eat, invite your friends to eat then go back to studying, there you nocked out two things in a few hours, you socialized and ate.

Create two main communities of friends one to have fun with and one to study with, now these two can sometimes overlap but sometimes they don't. You need to have that group that you can go out and just have fun with, clean fun obviously, you don't want to put your self in danger or your education at risk. So find that group by going to freshmen meet and greet events at the beginning of the year, follow social media pages to find when people are meeting. Now for the serious stuff, a study group. Meet people in your classes that are serious about getting good grades and ask them if they want to study together or work on an assignment together this will initiate the study group. Ask if they live on campus so you can meet up to study or work together.

Now from my perspective, which is of a young women striving to achieve great things, to be successful you have to starts with good work ethic.

You have to be disciplined, be able to commit your time to something and follow through with it until you get the result you want. This also ties into work ethic, you have to have the work ethic to sit down and get something done with the best quality of work in mind. Focus on the task at hand and don't get distracted, yes take breaks to ease your mind but done stay away from the task for too long other wise you'll get pulled in and lose precious time that you could have used to be doing something else that is going to get you further than scrolling through your twitter feed

Set small goals for your self, create some sort of system where you can see your progress for me that is a calendar/agenda, I list things that I want to accomplish that day then next to it as I finish it I put % finished and as I see the % go up I feel like I am achieving my goal for that day.

Write things down, sure you think you'll remember, but when you have a million things to remember you'll surly forget that one little thing that's worth a good amount of points like one little syllabus quiz online so write it down, even if its in a note in your phone or a text to yourself, just keep track of it so you can see it later and know that it a small goal that you have to accomplish.

Create a schedule for your self, now you may have a craze about scheduling your classes to wake up at 3PM and get to sleep in everyday, but think about it night classes, that's when every one wants to go out and there are things to do so maybe not such a good idea, but don't get me wrong 7AMs are not the best idea either then you cant stay out late or study late or early for that matter make a reasonable class schedule for yourself 10:30 is usually a good start time and I try not to go any latter than 7 if I can. And I schedule gaps between my classes so I have time to study for the next one if I have a test or I have time to finish up an assignment if needed. Believe me you don't want to be staying up until 3 AM every day just because you don't have class till noon or after noon just think your sleeping while everyone else is living out the best hours of the day. Plus nothing is really open really late so your better off living your life during daylight hours.

DON'T BUY THE BOOKS!!!! WAIT!!! It will say required but a lot of the time the professors mainly use their slides as the test material and you study off the slides, plus books are crazy expensive. now if its a work book you will most likely need to buy it and there is really no way out of that one its to stressful to have to photocopy your friends book all the time so just buy it. Look at places like AMAZON to rent your text books they are way more reasonably priced and most of the time you don't really need the text book for world history if you're an engineering major or something similar to that.

Studying habits... don't wait until the day before or three days before to study for the test, most classes now a days are solely based on test scores so are you really going to let your $2000 class go to waist because you studied three days or the day before your test? YOU BETTER NOT! At the beginning of the semester look at all of you syllabuses and put deadlines and test dates in your calendar so you know when you have something due so you don't miss the deadline and lose points. Study at least 3 WEES IN ADVANCE , sounds crazy I know but it works. sometimes you study even earlier than that. depending on when you start covering the material that will be on the test then you should start studying for that exam. And just think when you are studying for that test with all your might you are studying for the final that you are going to have at the end of the year too. If you are studying with friends, make sure you all agree to be studying during that time otherwise they will be a distraction and you wont be as successful at studying as you wanted to be. And sometimes it better to just study alone, find the best way for you to study and utilize studying tools like google docs so you always have your materials on the go and quizlet so you can review and quiz your self in different ways. Take pictures of your material so you can review it when you are waiting in line or sitting in the back seat of a car going somewhere. If people don't want to study but you know you need to just excuse your self and go study in your room or somewhere you know you wont be distracted.

Finals time... go to the review sessions, professors usually give a pretty comprehensive review session and sometimes even give you review questions from the test its self giving you an in on what exactly is on the test so you know what you need to study. DELETE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FINALS, sounds insane for some people but it will really help you focus more, you wont be tempted to scroll through you IG or twitter feed during breaks or keep checking for updates on posts, it really saves your precious time for things like studying. then when you finish your last final re-download them and get updated on everything that was happening in the world while you were studying and Acing your exams! Take breaks, you study better when you have a breather, get up every 2 to 3 hours and stretch, take care of your body, its no fun studying when your body starts to hurt. Take care of your feet and hands, massage them so they don't hurt from walking and writing, sounds crazy but it is defiantly a nice way to relax. Walk, run up a few flights of stairs to get your body going, endorphins are good for you they pick you up so you can keep studying.

Take care of your body! Don't eat terrible food, binge-ing of any sort is not good for you, moderation is key. Don't over work your self, socialize, eat healthy, exercise, study because that is why you are in school,

Find time to take care of your body, sleep like a normal person, don't stay up really late, pace your self so you don't have to cram, what I said about studying at least 3 weeks in advance is a courtesy believe me you will be so thankful when you don't have to study 4 weeks worth of material in 1 night and you don't have to have your stress levels extremely high, make sure to put your health first. You preform better when you take care of your body. Don't let your body come last, your body is what is getting you places, you have to be able to move and function to succeed. And no school is not bad for your health so don't use that as an excuse to not study ;)

Find your prime time. What hours do you do your best work in? For me it was late at night and mid day. This is probably when you do most of your work, considering it is a reasonable time, if you have a 7 AM, midnight probably isn't the best time to be working on something, so your prime time should somewhat correspond with your class schedule.

How to email a professor... some professors have guidelines on their syllabus but others don't so here are some guideline. but first make sure you always CHECK THE SYLLABUS FIRST a good way to do this is to look at it on your computer and use the ctrl-f function to search for key words that may relate you your question.

Here is a screen shot of some guidelines on how to email a professor

Oh and one last thing, use websites like ratemyprofessor to check on your professors ratings, this is a big deal! Some of your peers will say its not, but it can be the difference between an A and a C. This website will give you ratings and comments on professors and different things that people like or dislike about them. Most of the time they are pretty accurate and I am so glad I use it for looking up professors because I have had some pretty fantastic professors. So make sure to use it when registering for your courses.

That's it for now don't want to stress you out too much, hope this advice helped! Let me know if you have any suggestions and tips and tricks on being succesful in college and maybe ill add them :)

ciao