Plan Now to Make Your College Education Work

Plan Now to Make Your College Education Work

By Lynn Scully

College costs money: money that is well spent, to be sure. But it is up to you, the student, to ensure that you are getting the best value for your tuition dollars. Study skills and time management are essential to college success.

Think differently about school. You pay to be there and take classes. You are the consumer. You are paying for an education, not merely a degree. Learning is not something you pay dollars for and it then belongs to you; you must learn in order to have an education. Evaluate, with an eye towards value, your college decisions. Be sure you are getting the value you expect by making the most of your college experience from day one. Success takes planning and fortitude.

If possible, get a list of the text books and suggested reading for a class before the semester begins. You are paying for the course, the faculty should make every effort to have this information available, upon request. Read the text, or as much as possible, before you step into the classroom. Once classes start, your time will be limited.

When classes have begun:

I. Read each chapter before it is assigned.

How to read effectively

Set a time limit: about 15-30 minutes (depending on the subject and the length of

the section) for each section of a chapter.

a. Read the section and immediately do the example exercises that are

explained in the section. Write notes on the answering process. If your

study environment allows, summarize and postulate aloud to hear your

logic. Keep focused.

b. Do the exercises that follow the worked out examples. Immediately check

the answers at the back of the book.

c. If you incorrectly answered any questions, check the section for

information to help you answer correctly.

d. Put Post it notes on any pages that have important tables or charts so you

can reference the charts quickly in the future. Be sure to write on the note

what information is on the marked page. Put the page numbers of

reference material in your notes, also.

e. Clearly identify what you still do not understand.

When the professor presents the material in class, you will be familiar enough to

understand his lecture and ask relevant questions that will increase your understanding.

For History Classes: Make a long timeline (tape sheets together, if necessary)and fill it in as you read. This timeline will help you to make sense of what you are reading, to better understand why events happened, and to see what actions precipitated or resulted from key events. The timeline will serve as an easily recalled visual aid at test time. Done correctly, it will get messy.

For Literature and Reading classes: Read the study questions before you read a section. As you notice key points, stop and relate them to the study question. If no study questions are provided, briefly summarize each section or chapter before moving onto the next. Use Post It notes to mark the pages of passages you found especially helpful, confusing, or difficult to interpret- bring them up in class discussion.

For Language Classes: Find someone who speaks the language and make it a point to speak to them regularly. This may be a friend, fellow student, restaurant worker or business owner in town, or someone you can only speak to over the phone.

Also, rent movies in the language; you may not understand most of what is being said, but hearing the language will accustom your ear to the different sounds and intonations. Your studying will be more effective and your accent will benefit.

II. Make and KEEP weekly appointments with your professor.

Most professors keep regular office hours or offer to be available upon request.

Make weekly meetings with the professor and keep them.

Make the meetings effective by taking along your notes from your text

reading. Having clearly written questions along with your work will make your meetings fruitful; your instructor will appreciate that you value his time by approaching him with clear objectives and he will see that you have put in serious study time before seeking help.

III. Find a study partner.

A study partner need not be as proficient in a class as you wish to be. A study partner is someone to discuss the material with; someone to ask you questions so, as you answer, you can gauge your own comprehension. A study partner allows verbal discussion, thus increasing understanding and retention.

IV Plan breaks

Knowing you will have at least some time to enjoy yourself is crucial to staying focused when you are working. Plan recreational activities, or time for them, when you plan your study schedule. Self denial usually backfires into self pity, inability to focus, or quitting.

V. Evaluate your progress in each class.

Are your grades suffering in one particular class? Are you falling behind on the recommended reading? Are you learning? You take classes to learn. If you are not learning; if you are too busy in other courses to complete the assignments in a course; if you will be going into a test without having read the books or chapters assigned; consider dropping the class. If you can make this decision early, you may get a refund, but most likely you will have to forfeit the tuition. Either way, a little less money is usually a better choice than a lower grade point average, especially if a course you are in danger of failing is a core curriculum class. Core curriculum classes must be repeated; the damage to your average could be difficult to fix. Gauge your work load and plan accordingly. Too many heavy duty classes in one quarter will impede effective learning in all of them. An overzealous workload could lead you to feel inadequate in your major, thus leading to an unwarranted change of major. Taking less coursed may initially lead you to feel that t your money is being wasted, but the value per dollar is actually less if you are taking more classes and not learning. And, if you plan on continuing your education to the Masters level or higher, you must learn the prerequisites to succeed, or you will eventually have to repeat classes to learn missed information.

VI. Should you work during your college education?

Ideally, no. If you can manage to work over the summer or breaks, so much the better. A part time job easily takes up 25% of the 80 ìaware hoursî available per week. Is working worth it? Is the money earned worth the compromised grade?

Consider Yvonne: Yvonne was at a competitive college. She knew she was academically suited for her biology major, but her grades said otherwise. A review of her study habits revealed that she was doing everything correctly, but was not allowing enough study time. Most information has a learning curve- time and repetition are necessary to fully absorb and then apply that which is learned.

Solution: Carving out time became a priority. A close look at her schedule revealed that she was working 20 hours per week at slightly above minimum wage. After accounting for time spent in class, traveling to and from class, eating, and hygiene, she was down to 13 hours per week for studying. That is 7 hours less than she was dedicating to her part-time job. She further realized that the money necessary to retake a course was more than she would make in a month on the job! She decided that work and preparing for her future could not happen at the same time.

Lynn Scully has been tutoring and guiding High School students through their college admission process for the last 18 years. She is author of the get IT (Independent Tutorial) SAT Program. http://www.getSATprep.com

You may email her with questions for consideration to be answered in a future column at mailto:lynn@getsatprep.com.