In some Universities, class sizes can be extremely intimidating. Some lecture rooms are filled up to three hundred students. Let's just say that asking a professor a question in-front of that many students is not ideal. Due to the amount of students in these classes, it can be easy to feel confused about what the professor is teaching, and for grades to slip. Here are five studying methods that can help keep your grades up this semester.
1. Go to tutoring sessions.
Where some universities do not offer this resource, if you go to a university that has tutoring services, they are extremely useful. For students who feel lost in huge lectures, the tutoring sessions can ease this feeling. The tutors will help you stay caught up in the course and will explain hands on how to solve problems that you may be confused about. Where a lecture can have around three hundred students in it, small tutoring sessions are much more intimate. For those of you who go to schools where tutoring sessions are not available, try contacting a friend who already took the course. If they are willing to help you understand material and give you old notes, this can be an extremely useful resource for you as well.
2. Go to office hours.
Most professors have office hour times available for students once or twice a week. If you feel like you are struggling to comprehend a lecture, don't hesitate to go to your professor's office hours. Therefore, you can stay on track with the course by asking small questions that confuse you. This way, by the time the exam rolls around, you will feel more prepared and your score will be better on it. If you have questions, do not wait until the week before an exam to ask your professor about them. At that point you will most likely be extremely behind and it is hard for you to understand the information the professor is giving you in time for the exam. Therefore, by being proactive and attending office hours earlier, you will not be faced with this problem.
3. Do not skip class.
College offers a level of freedom that high school never offered. For those of you who go away to school at a University, it can be so easy to sleep through your first class, or skip class on a nice day. Yet, in reality, this can hurt your grade tremendously. Most Universities run on a semester system, which means that a plethora of information is taught in only a few months before you head home. Therefore, by missing a class, you may be missing a whole chapter of information covered that will be on the next exam. If you miss this chapter, then you will not be able to understand the information that is taught in the next lecture and the cycle continues. Therefore, it is important to attend all your classes. Either you or your parents, or both pay for your education. Therefore, it is important to utilize the money being put in for you to get your degree.
4. Do not go out on a school night.
Where college offers a lot of opportunities to spend time with friends by going out and partying, grades should still be the most important thing. When you go out on a school night, you wake up the next morning feeling tired, hungover, and gross. This increases your chances of skipping class, sleeping in a class, or not retaining the information being learned. This does not even include the fact that the night before your class, you could have been going over the material that is going to be learned in this class instead of drinking. Where I am not saying to stay in every single night, it is important to make sure you are on track with your grades before anything else.
5. When doing schoolwork and studying, avoid all distractions.
Even while writing this article, I have been faced with my phone ringing and other distractions. Especially for our generation, it is very hard to stay focussed while doing schoolwork and avoiding the urge to check your phone. Yet every time you get distracted, it takes your brain five minutes to focus fully again on what you were doing. Especially during exam season, distractions while studying have caused for many of my grades to drop. Therefore, when studying or doing homework, take the extra minute before you start to turn your phone off. I promise that whatever your friends are texting you can wait. Your grades will thank you.
