University/College: How Do You Deal With It?

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Just something I have learned, don't buy the text books. The amount of money I have wasted buying books which are no use to me is probably over $400-500 (most of that being during the first 2 semesters).

Going into my 3rd year I still slack off like crazy and wait until the last minute for all my big projects, but that probably won't stop now as I have been doing that for over a decade now.

Great advice.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

My method of success at UofC was to spend a lot of time at the den.

I now have a diploma from SAIT.

Swap SAIT for MRC, and this also summarizes my strategy.

[keenan87]

Thanks for the advice so far everyone, greatly appreciate it.

How do people feel about studying with someone? Would you rather do it by yourself or have someone there to study with?

I am in sciences so not sure if that helps. However, so far I think that both ways have their negatives and positives.

[V]

I'm pretty proud of the fact that I studied really hard for about 2 weeks per semester. I didn't go to class. I didn't do a lot of assignments. I spent a lot of time in the bar. I got middle of the road marks. Yet here I am, 10 years later with a very successful engineering career. And not a bit of what I "learned" for my degree has proven to be remotely useful to my career. In short, I'm very glad I didn't waste the time.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Just something I have learned, don't buy the text books. The amount of money I have wasted buying books which are no use to me is probably over $400-500 (most of that being during the first 2 semesters).

Going into my 3rd year I still slack off like crazy and wait until the last minute for all my big projects, but that probably won't stop now as I have been doing that for over a decade now.

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

Great advice.

Depending on the class, it can be if money is tight.

From my experience, any Social Science class pretty much outright requires the textbook or you will be taking a huge hit in marks.

Math classes will work without the text but most times you are just causing yourself more work to find the correct information and apply it. For example: try finding a good set of calculus problems of the appropriate difficulty to do on the subject matter taught in the previous week of classes that makes sense over doing the nice list the prof has compiled on the course outline.

Computer Science classes are hit and miss about the text, it really depends on the prof but most of the time I wouldn't buy the text unless it is a theory class.

I assume a natural science class would fall somewhere between these 2 extremes.

A better solution is to always know what textbooks the class needs and send an email to your prof a week+ before lectures start and ask them if a previous edition would be appropriate. Most of the time it is, and you can get your textbook for $10-$40 and the only real cost is the shipping time - so make sure you order before class starts!

[PIMking]

I took 15 credit hours this summer and struggled with pre-cal. I didn't fail it in the split term but I got a D, so I took it again in the second split and I thought I did much better yet I still got a D. Every other grade I've received were either A's or B's. I just cant understand it. It's very depressing and makes me want to quit.

I'm taking it again this fall semester for the last time. If I don't pass then I must change my major or drop out. If I pass I would have spent 1,000 for one class.... That just makes it worse.

I don't know what else I have to do, I've recorded lectures, took good notes, did the listening trick and none of them worked. I didn't miss a single class either.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by keenan87

Thanks for the advice so far everyone, greatly appreciate it.

How do people feel about studying with someone? Would you rather do it by yourself or have someone there to study with?

I am in sciences so not sure if that helps. However, so far I think that both ways have their negatives and positives.

The classes I did best in were one's I took with a friend I met in my 2nd year. He was very similar to me in that he was a mature student trying to correct an earlier poor career choice, so he was there to work and not just because "it was what he was supposed to be doing"

It allows for ready discussion and gives you someone to bounce ideas off of and it gives you an easy choice if you need to partner up for a project or something.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by PIMking

I took 15 credit hours this summer and struggled with pre-cal. I didn't fail it in the split term but I got a D, so I took it again in the second split and I thought I did much better yet I still got a D. Every other grade I've received were either A's or B's. I just cant understand it. It's very depressing and makes me want to quit.

I'm taking it again this fall semester for the last time. If I don't pass then I must change my major or drop out. If I pass I would have spent 1,000 for one class.... That just makes it worse.

I don't know what else I have to do, I've recorded lectures, took good notes, did the listening trick and none of them worked. I didn't miss a single class either.

Math is about practice. Listening in lectures does nothing to help you be able to do a problem. The problem is sometimes you get stuff you just cant figure out. In those situations, leverage your prof/ta and get them to give you some one on one time. Often first year math courses have 'special sessions' of review and further discussion of the material where the students get a lot more one on one time. At first I didn't like them because they took a lot of extra time, but my last math class I took I went full commitment into one of these sessions ( including a Saturday morning class) and I ended up with the best mark of my university career.

Also, do all the practice questions until you can do them in your sleep. This applies to every class but Math especially.

[username]

Originally Posted by V

I'm pretty proud of the fact that I studied really hard for about 2 weeks per semester. I didn't go to class. I didn't do a lot of assignments. I spent a lot of time in the bar. I got middle of the road marks. Yet here I am, 10 years later with a very successful engineering career. And not a bit of what I "learned" for my degree has proven to be remotely useful to my career. In short, I'm very glad I didn't waste the time.

100% agree with this post. Learn what you need to, get the marks you need to get by and then get out. Once you're out you're going to start learning when you get a job.

Well since you're going for med school, spend your time studying and just make sure you're able to kill the mcat.

[keenan87]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Math is about practice. Listening in lectures does nothing to help you be able to do a problem. The problem is sometimes you get stuff you just cant figure out. In those situations, leverage your prof/ta and get them to give you some one on one time. Often first year math courses have 'special sessions' of review and further discussion of the material where the students get a lot more one on one time. At first I didn't like them because they took a lot of extra time, but my last math class I took I went full commitment into one of these sessions ( including a Saturday morning class) and I ended up with the best mark of my university career.

Also, do all the practice questions until you can do them in your sleep. This applies to every class but Math especially.

I completely agree. Practice is all you can do to improve your math skills. Try to go over the examples and make sure you have them down with very good understanding. More than often, questions you are stuck on are very similar to the example questions.

[ZedMan]

Originally Posted by keenan87

Thanks for the advice so far everyone, greatly appreciate it.

How do people feel about studying with someone? Would you rather do it by yourself or have someone there to study with?

I am in sciences so not sure if that helps. However, so far I think that both ways have their negatives and positives.

I always did best on exams where I did the following:

-Make my own notes
-Study from them solo
-Quiz and discuss with a couple others to reinforce what I knew, fill in any gaps and correct any errors

Of course that's pretty labour intensive so I only did it about 20% of the time

[NuclearFart]

Originally Posted by keenan87

How do people feel about studying with someone? Would you rather do it by yourself or have someone there to study with?

I am in sciences so not sure if that helps. However, so far I think that both ways have their negatives and positives.

I walked your exact road and beyond. The people you want to study with have to be decent students for this to work. I found getting together with a bunch of other classmates (good ones! no deadweight or black pearl machines!) in the week before an exam quite effective. Most of us had gone over the majority of material by that point, and we'd gather in one of those conference rooms with a big whiteboard. We'd then go over the key concepts, and make intelligent guesses about what questions were likely to be asked on the exam, and then discuss around those. Everyone would chip in their answer, but more importantly their 'why', and they'd also throw in their way of remembering crucial bits of info. Discussing big picture concepts really solidified our understanding, in addition to learning little extra's along the way. We got pretty decent at predicting the concepts to be tested too. Near the end of these sessions when people were tired of thinking hard, each person would take a turn on the whiteboard doing a mind dump of one of the lists of things that needed to be memorized.

[Nage Waza]

Here is what I did:

Determine the entire workload of all the classes and put it in one of those giant wall calenders. Now mark appropriate times to get the work done. If a major assignment is due Oct 15, get it done for October 1st. Hand it in early to the TA or Prof, get it back and fix it up and hand in again.

Go to all of the labs and open offices - ALL OF THEM. Eventually the Prof will give you all the info you need to smoke every exam and assignment. If the Prof likes scotch, make sure you buy him a scotch at the campus pub. Once you build these relationships, you will stand out above your classmates.

Start studying on day one - study the chapter and then study the diagrams. I like to write down definitions and study those separately. I would also study which concepts go together, so that exams are easier to put things back together. I also was into study groups where we would present problems to each other. If you say an answer, listen to an answer, draw an answer, write an answer and think about an answer you should do great on an exam.

I would go to school early in the morning and spend an hour or so in the library, hang with buddies, then go back to the library. After four or five reps of this I would wind up with over five hours of study time a day (min 35 hours a week of just study time). All classwork and assignments would be done above and beyond the five hours.

Find time for the gym!

[jhunt223]

I study alone. I don't like relying on other students to help me learn and i don't like hearing them describe certain ways they go about doing different problems since it usually just screws up my thought process. I always throw on headphones when everybody's sitting around in class waiting to write a test/quiz for exactly that reason.

At the start of a semester I torrent at least 2 or 3 textbooks relating to every subject i'm studying (if i can find them) complete with a solution manual. It helps to have more than one reference source since different textbooks do a better job at explaining different topics. When i can't find a solution manual for a course www.cramster.com usually has enough answers to questions to suffice. I go on youtube and search for lectures from different schools and watch those. I maintain a cheat sheet for each class throughout the semester that i stick on a white board that sits right next to my computer, where i spend most of my time when I'm at home. I try to recreate the cheat sheets when I'm away from them and unoccupied -- sitting on a train, for example -- to make sure that I'm absorbing them and to keep them fresh in my mind. This is especially helpful at keeping information you learn at the start of the semester readily accessible and makes studying for finals simple.

Actually reading through every single word in a textbook rather than skimming is important. Seeing as how you are in your third year you probably already know this, but all those study groups wouldn't even need to exist if some of the lazy whiners you find in them would just actually read their text book.

Repetition is the main thing though. If you do practice problems, read examples, seek out information on the internet and watch youtube videos enough times there's no excuse to do bad in a course.

[LGA]

I always found cue cards really effective for myself. Most profs these days will have everything up online prior to the lecture, so spend time in lecture writing down their dumbed down explanations, or anything that they may add to their online notes. From those resources make cue cards out of the concepts you think are most important and then go through the cue cards as a way to test yourself.

If you can find a few friends in the class to study with that helps too, it helps to clarify what exactly you are studying and sometimes gives you a different view point.

EDIT: I think I've been pretty fortunate to find a few friends that are either really hard workers or that are at least on the same intellectual wave length as I am on. I completely understand the avoidance that some people have to studying with others as I've been in situations where I spend more time trying to explain simple concepts to people then studying, or worse you, listening to people talk about absolutely nothing. Studying with other people definitely only works if they can provide some form of assistance to you, if you're the hardworking/smart one and everyone else is slackers, I'd just study alone.

[Codes]

My major rule was no homework Friday and Saturday nights unless there was a final exam the next day.

Although this method doesn't work for everyone, I found group study with a core group of people to be extremely effective for studying. Not only does it help you if you don't understand something, but I found that if I could teach someone else the concept then I had a pretty good handle on it myself.

As inefficient as this may sound, taking a break from study or an assignment after a couple of hours and playing a video game, or going for a coffee, or something social really helped to keep me interested and on track during my study sessions.

I also found that having something fun to look forward to (ie: ball hockey) forced me to use my time as effectively as possible to ensure I completed my assignments with enough time to do fun things.

I guess what it comes down to with me is make sure to balance your academics and fun time to ensure you don't get burned out for when it really counts.

[Mr.Coffee]

If you can get your hands on old exams... and studying by that nature is all in bounds... then I'd highly recommend that avenue. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet (don't think it has at least).

Anyway, you think you got it hard now? Just wait til your career starts. That's when the real fun begins. I don't think I woke up before 10am more than 3 or 4 times all university (I'm probably exaggerating here, but all my courses were night time ones).

Trust me, it only gets worse... I look at what I'm doing these days vs. school, it isn't even close. Then you retire, then you die. So yeah, I'd listen to the people saying enjoy it.

Don't get greedy though... don't become one of those "I refuse to leave university" people, they turn out the lamest in the end.

[wooohooo]

If you're trying to get into Medical school I'll try to give you some personal experience that worked for me... and my classmates.

I find getting into medical school or dentistry or many health related fields very different than say engineering or business. I say this because it's a lot more than having a 4.0, you really, really, really need extracurricular activities. What makes medical school so difficult to get into is you need to show leadership (starting a club or being the president of a club is great), personal achievements (say a black belt in karate or you swam across the pacific ocean), excellent marks (usually nothing lower than 3.7), great MCAT score and be good at interviewing. Oh yeah, sucking up to your prof to get not a good recommendation letter but an excellent one.

A lot about Universities is making proper contacts. Having one good contact can set you up with a whole variety of options - like a great volunteer experience you can put on your resume. You also need to be organized. University isn't that difficult if you are very organized. Most successful people I know aren't the brightest and smartest, but rather they are very organized and don't try to get things done the night before.

In Sciences somehow your exams will all fall within a week of each other, I don't know how this somehow always happens but it does. Start early and find a study strategy that works for you. I liked to study alone for a few days, review all my material then meet up with friends and go through all the information and problem sets. You might think you know everything but that's probably what your friends think too.

On top of studying, you need to start seeing your prof and asking intelligent questions. Also tell them ahead of time that you need a letter of recommendation so they can prepare you a statement.

For the MCAT a lot of medical students have taken a summer off to study for it or at the very least a few months. It's a very difficult test and covers a wide variety of information.

Then if you got that all figured out and are granted an interview, you really really really need to practice this. Different Universities have different interviewing styles. I believe at UC once you get an interview, all students are judged in the same boat all on their interview. They ask you situational questions and you get marked on your response. Others ask you about why you're interested in Medicine etc.

Other than that, enjoy your time. It's a short four years, and in no time you'll be on your next steps to success.

[Freeway]

As someone with two degrees and about to begin work on a third:

Rule #1: READ THE COURSE OUTLINE.
Rule #2: DON'T BLOW DEADLINES.
Rule #3: TALK TO YOUR PROF.
Rule #4: SHOW UP MOST OF THE TIME.

[Itse]

I just want to thank everyone for this thread, as my studies at Helsinki University are about to start in about two weeks, and I'm super nervous. I'm 33 and my first attempt at a higher degree ended disastrously.

It's just calming to have something sensible to focus on and some ideas for new habits I can try to learn. I decided against starting reading the course books early as I felt it would've been too obsessive at this point, but I think after reading this thread I'll rethink that. Hell, just doing the things you're nervous about is usually the best cure anyway