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I went from a 2.0 GPA in high school to a 4.0 in college, and I credit a large part of that to a few habits I developed: - Show up to each and every class, sit

I went from a 2.0 GPA in high school to a 4.0 in college, and I credit a large part of that to a few habits I developed: - Show up to each and every class, sit in the front row (they don't charge extra for these prime seats!) and write down everything that goes on the board. Ask good questions when you have the opportunity. - Take advantage of office hours (another perk that doesn't cost extra) - Do every scrap of extra credit that's offered The last two items help, partly because there's a lot of subjectiveness in grading so impressions matter, but I think the biggest thing was the writing. I would fill a D-ring binder with a couple hundred pages each semester, and a lot of it stuck with me.

DangitBobby 1y ago
"Writing down everything that goes on the board" only works if you can write and listen at the same time. I cannot. I had to balance having the lesson from class available in my notes and actively hearing and digesting what they were saying. It was not easy. But ultimately having notes was a better strategy for getting homework done, so that's what I prioritized.
- alexchantavy 1y ago
  +1, most of the time in college I was so upset how professors would just have a million words and equations on a slide and expect us to look at it later. I learn so much more when a professor has a whiteboard and writes out an equation is derived one step at a time.
  - mullingitover 1y ago
    > I learn so much more when a professor has a whiteboard and writes out an equation is derived one step at a time. 100%, and when I say I wrote everything that went on the board I particularly mean on math/CS/science classes. I feel like I truly learned how to do proper math from this habit, because I was learning to work problems exactly like the professors did. Before this I was kind of fumbling around when it came to showing my work.
- pathsjs 1y ago
  In fact, this is an opportunity to anticipate what is going to be written. I studied maths, so I am not sure how it would work for other fields of study. But one thing that worked very well for me was to write everything, spoken or written, before it was said, or to try to stay 10 seconds ahead of the lecture. This would keep my attention and it would require an active comprehension, like continuously doing exercises. I was then able to recall what was said much better. And I could take advantage of the pauses to get a little ahead so I would not get lost in the next difficult passage. Of course, this only works in fields where there is a strong logical connection between the various parts of the lecture, so that you can indeed try to figure out yourself, it would not work where there is a lot of memorization
- Corey_ 1y ago
  [dead]
nytesky 1y ago
I never went to office hours because I felt I had not worked hard enough to bother the professor yet. Just fell further and further behind. Big mistake that haunts me to today, learn from this point! I’m more skeptical of write “everything” down — depends on how feasible that is (is slides vs chalk board - you can probably copy everything if they are writing on a board which is slower than pen and paper. )
- al_borland 1y ago
  I was the same way with office hours and notes. They would generally go so fast that I wasn’t just scribbling it down, still missing stuff, and if someone were to ask me what the class was about 5 minutes later, I wouldn’t know. There was no time to stop and think.
calmbonsai 1y ago
Well-done on learning how you best learn. A book I recommend to any/all college students is "What Smart Students Know" https://a.co/d/iB8LNNW https://a.co/d/iB8LNNW . It still has, sadly, a very click-baity title and marketing, but it has enormous practical study advice for different subjects. Wow. I kid you not, we never were offered any extra credit aside from the occasional lab follow-ups. I found my Humanities classes usually not worth attending due to the large lecture hall environment and so much route-memorization. It was far more time-efficient to speed-listen through the lectures on audio recordings and "attend my class of 1" while taking notes. I found office hours very hit-or-miss depending on the professor. My electronics professor was a horrid lecturer, but awesome 1-on-1. His office hours ended up being "my class". The exact opposite of my physics professor who was a real showman with whiteboard diagrams and connecting desperate topics during lecture, but an absolute ass in person. I ended up applying "selective neglect" to a two junior year courses as they weren't in my major, didn't stack, and the entire grade was based on only 3 exams. I just crammed for each exam. It suuucked at the time and was super-stressful, but looking-back it really ended up being the best use of my limited resources. I do wholeheartedly concur with physically writing down lecture notes and doing as much work as possible "on paper". It helps with both retention and concept synthesis.
- mullingitover 1y ago
  A big reason for my strategy in attending office hours was I wanted to get to know the professors personally. Going from high school to college, I was shocked at how grades went from a hard 90+=A, 80-90=B, etc scale, to just...vibes? And if you were riding the line between an A and a B, and the professor knew you and knew you were diligent, you could catch a break sometimes. Plus they were usually very interesting and smart people, so interacting with them was time well spent.

DangitBobby 1y ago

"Writing down everything that goes on the board" only works if you can write and listen at the same time. I cannot. I had to balance having the lesson from class available in my notes and actively hearing and digesting what they were saying. It was not easy. But ultimately having notes was a better strategy for getting homework done, so that's what I prioritized.

alexchantavy 1y ago
+1, most of the time in college I was so upset how professors would just have a million words and equations on a slide and expect us to look at it later. I learn so much more when a professor has a whiteboard and writes out an equation is derived one step at a time.
- mullingitover 1y ago
  > I learn so much more when a professor has a whiteboard and writes out an equation is derived one step at a time. 100%, and when I say I wrote everything that went on the board I particularly mean on math/CS/science classes. I feel like I truly learned how to do proper math from this habit, because I was learning to work problems exactly like the professors did. Before this I was kind of fumbling around when it came to showing my work.
pathsjs 1y ago
In fact, this is an opportunity to anticipate what is going to be written. I studied maths, so I am not sure how it would work for other fields of study. But one thing that worked very well for me was to write everything, spoken or written, before it was said, or to try to stay 10 seconds ahead of the lecture. This would keep my attention and it would require an active comprehension, like continuously doing exercises. I was then able to recall what was said much better. And I could take advantage of the pauses to get a little ahead so I would not get lost in the next difficult passage. Of course, this only works in fields where there is a strong logical connection between the various parts of the lecture, so that you can indeed try to figure out yourself, it would not work where there is a lot of memorization
Corey_ 1y ago
[dead]

nytesky 1y ago

I never went to office hours because I felt I had not worked hard enough to bother the professor yet. Just fell further and further behind. Big mistake that haunts me to today, learn from this point! I’m more skeptical of write “everything” down — depends on how feasible that is (is slides vs chalk board - you can probably copy everything if they are writing on a board which is slower than pen and paper. )

al_borland 1y ago
I was the same way with office hours and notes. They would generally go so fast that I wasn’t just scribbling it down, still missing stuff, and if someone were to ask me what the class was about 5 minutes later, I wouldn’t know. There was no time to stop and think.

calmbonsai 1y ago

Well-done on learning how you best learn. A book I recommend to any/all college students is "What Smart Students Know" https://a.co/d/iB8LNNW https://a.co/d/iB8LNNW . It still has, sadly, a very click-baity title and marketing, but it has enormous practical study advice for different subjects. Wow. I kid you not, we never were offered any extra credit aside from the occasional lab follow-ups. I found my Humanities classes usually not worth attending due to the large lecture hall environment and so much route-memorization. It was far more time-efficient to speed-listen through the lectures on audio recordings and "attend my class of 1" while taking notes. I found office hours very hit-or-miss depending on the professor. My electronics professor was a horrid lecturer, but awesome 1-on-1. His office hours ended up being "my class". The exact opposite of my physics professor who was a real showman with whiteboard diagrams and connecting desperate topics during lecture, but an absolute ass in person. I ended up applying "selective neglect" to a two junior year courses as they weren't in my major, didn't stack, and the entire grade was based on only 3 exams. I just crammed for each exam. It suuucked at the time and was super-stressful, but looking-back it really ended up being the best use of my limited resources. I do wholeheartedly concur with physically writing down lecture notes and doing as much work as possible "on paper". It helps with both retention and concept synthesis.

mullingitover 1y ago
A big reason for my strategy in attending office hours was I wanted to get to know the professors personally. Going from high school to college, I was shocked at how grades went from a hard 90+=A, 80-90=B, etc scale, to just...vibes? And if you were riding the line between an A and a B, and the professor knew you and knew you were diligent, you could catch a break sometimes. Plus they were usually very interesting and smart people, so interacting with them was time well spent.