How to wisely spend your time in college to do well in classes

By Brady Thomas

When many people get out of high school, they normally believe that they are prepared for anything that college will throw at them. They think that what they learned in high school gave them the proper knowledge to study and learn properly. However, students typically and very quickly find that college is much more different and difficult than what they encountered in high school.

When students begin college, they believe that it will be easier because they  do not have class all day, five days a week, like they did in high school. This extra time should be used to complete school-related tasks such as studying, reading course material, or even working on homework. However, most students do not do that. Many college freshmen become caught up in playing video games, watching Netflix, or the ever popular, taking naps. These conflicts of interest can be dangerous because it is typically expected that college students should spend two to three hours outside of class working on course material for every hour they spend in class.

However, because coursework can be difficult and stressful, one tends to avoid it and participate in more activities that they find fun and relaxing. By spending more time away from their assignments, students do not complete them in a timely manner and their coursework accumulates. When this occurs, students begin to feel overwhelmed, stressed, and may feel like their brain cannot store or remember any more information because they are trying to take in so much at one time. This is where working memory comes in to play.

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Professors Hate This Study Method: How Wearing a Zumba Suit and Binging On Kahlúa Improved Exam Scores

By Christopher Forte and Shantell Brusse

So your class has just taken a difficult calculus exam. Amongst the crowd of people leaving the classroom are expressions of relief, profound joy and confidence. There is a light at the end of everyone’s tunnel, except for you. You stagger outside the classroom in complete astonishment, run into Walgreens to buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s half-baked cookie dough paradise and proceed to crawl in bed to withdraw from such a cruel world.

The following week is spent in wallowing as the inevitable test grade is posted onto D2L and your dreams of leading an armada of food trucks are foolishly, however temporarily, put into question. Assuming that there are no perfect people on Earth, such a failure may lead to a short-lived, higher ingestion of alcohol. More days pass and you break out of your drunken spree only to realize that it is the day of the next calculus exam. A short review of the notes and you find yourself sitting in the same classroom where the exam review took place several days before. Still slightly inebriated, the exam is completed and turned back to the TA. The surprise of your life is posted on D2L as you score higher than you ever have before in the class.

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