What is Digg?82 Comments
- AnteChronos, on 10/10/2007, -1/+44Where's "Do your damn homework"? Seriously, people often skip assignments that have small point values attached to them, but working assignments increases understanding. In highschool, I skipped assignments all the damn time, and my grades suffered. Did almost all of them in college, and my grades were *much* higher. (having to shell out tuition from my own pocket may have been an influencing factor, though).
- rnwen2750, on 10/10/2007, -2/+328. Get off of digg.
Seriously though, none of these seven should be news to anyone. - EnderMB, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18I can sum up that entire article in one word.
Try.
All of these are painfully obvious, and everyone knows that this will help them. It's just a divide between work and play which takes over, and that's something this article will not help. To try and not make this comment just about ripping on the article one thing I found to be worthwhile is to type up all notes into Word format. Once done, install Google Desktop and you'll be able to search through all of your files easily, making revision so much easier at the end of the year. - rrunboy12, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12To raise your GPA:
1. pick your classes through ratemyprofessor.com
2. go to every class and take good notes
3. study using notecards
4. type up your notes and highlight important points
5. While your reading, underline and highlight important sentences and concepts
6. After the test, figure out whether the exam questions were mostly from lecture, the book, or notes
7. Wake up early before the test and study for a few hours
8. Go to sleep early the night before a test
9. Go to A+ review for midterms and finals - jawbreaker4fs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9I take it you've never taken a writing course.
- bdbr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7The point isn't about speed, its about retention. There is strong evidence that the physical act of writing something down helps in retention. Even copying your typed notes by hand will help in retention more than staring at your typed notes.
- tatinthehat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+68. Set up a study schedule
I thinking setting yourself a quota for how much school work you want done in a day is a good habit (i.e. doing an hours worth of work daily).
Also, note cards. Note cards are your best friend. - BurnTees, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6i think it's all good advice...especially number 1. i always tell my younger cousins...you might want to, but don't skip class. if there's a party that night and class the next morning...skip the party...there will be one next week that's just as good. i spent much less time studying than a lot of my peers just because i went to class.
i know a lot of people who also had success with copying their notes. get home after class and look back thru your notes and it all makes sense...4 weeks from now when studying for an exam, you'll have no clue what you were thinking when you wrote those notes. recopy your notes after class and add any further explanations needed...it really helps.
some other advice...don't take shrooms at midnight the night before an 11am final. i still got an A :) - rmidha, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7I disagree with #3 (Take notes by hand). While I agree that taking notes by hand is much better than using PowerPoint, the best thing to do is to devote your brain toward listening and thinking, and not mindlessly copying down things you don't understand.
- Bricks, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Tip 6 was best for me. I could skip class, go to sleep late etc. But the peer pressure of a study group whipped my ass into shape enough to do well
- fasda, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5#9 DO NOT GET Halo 3 or Bioshock
- scott12087, on 10/10/2007, -0/+415-20 minutes to review ALL of your notes? I don't think so. I'm in engineering, and I'm lucky if I can review my notes from one of today's lectures in 15-20 minutes.
- shadowsurfr1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I was probably one of the few kids in my chemistry class who actually did the never-collected homework and read the textbook. I'd also pay attention in class and the combination of those factors made other students glare at me when I'd answer a question straight from the book and get homework passes for it or get an A on almost every test. I say almost because polyatomic ions are still the death of me.
- xerus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5My ass tips are fine.
- manova, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4#6 is dead on. It always amazes me that many people do not analyze prior tests to determine how the prof writes test questions. If you have several tests in a class, you should be able to predict the majority of later test questions which will streamline your studying. To give an example, in one class I had, all you had to do was find any word in bold in the text book and study the sentence before and after it. Figured that out after the first test and the next three were easy (even took him for another class and he wrote his exams the same way).
- subcomandante, on 10/10/2007, -0/+48. Start homework the day it is assigned.
- mrnoob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You are a ***** nub. Dont post on digg again.
- bdbr, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Another tip - pick your instructors wisely. Some instructors take it upon themselves to be the "gatekeeper", the one who fails the freshmen & sophomores to keep the class sizes small in the junior/senior years. Some instructors (particularly grad students who teach labs & breakout sessions) speak very broken English - you won't learn much if you can't understand them. Some instructors are just not very good at their jobs.
If you have friends who've taken the class, find out as much as possible about things like how good the instructor is, how much of the tests are from class material vs books, etc. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5I'm a freshman at UMD and I never did my homework during high school, it was never worth it. I copied all of my homework for my Calc BC class and I got a 5 on the AP. I'm taking Orgo this semester so I'm doing my homework, and I read the article.
- xerigen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Write your notes on paper? This is 2007. I type 120 WPM, I'm typing my damn notes.
- ArmyOfFun, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You're dead right. GPA is only important in the academic world, it means jack ***** in the business world. The only time I see resumes with someone's GPA on it is if they're a recent grad. The best advice I can give to college students is to try your best to get into a co-op/internship ASAP. DO NOT spend your summers doing jack ***** or working at that pizza place you used to work at in HS.
For one thing, if you do a good job as an intern, you're almost guaranteed a job upon graduation if that company is hiring. For another thing, companies want experienced people, they could care less about GPA. 16 months of actual on-the-job experience (4 months of full time work each college year) is far more important than your GPA. It also helps build connections with people who are already working in your field.
That said, a high GPA never hurts. - AnteChronos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3"The author has clearly never taken a full courseload, or went to community college."
...or actually did the assignments as soon as they were assigned. Seriously, I've pulled my share of all-nighters, and every single one was a direct result of my slacking off. On those occasions where I *didn't* slack off (which were few and far between), I got to goof off while my classmates were losing sleep on an assignment that I'd already completed. - fastcart, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Almost.
1. Review your class notes immediately (w/in 1hr) AFTER class & then again the next day. Takes 10 mins each time. The brain loses something like 80% of information that is not reinforced w/in 24 hrs.
If you do this, when exams roll around, you get As w/o cramming the night before. Just do a light review.
2.Add pictures, colors, and funny sized LeTTeRinG to your notes. Easier to remember pictures than text.
Went from a 2.8 to four semesters of 4.0 after doing this.
Why they don't teach this ANYWHERE is beyond me. - Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Most people only need the short list:
1) Stop being a slack ass - smackhero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2i did pretty much the same thing. but that's probably why i was the only person who ever got a C in that AP calc class while scoring a 5 on the AP exams. same thing happened with me in AP physics too when one girl who got an A in the class didn't even pass the AP test.
- jawbreaker4fs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Judging by my digg count, I suppose it's just me. Sometimes I'll have to pull an all nighter once a week just to stay on top of things. I guess two majors and a minor will do that.
- ipodman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Start by choosing a college wisely. Pick one with a high retention rate. http://www.smartcollege.org allows you to search by majors, sort by cost, retention rate, ethnicity and gender.
- offwithyourtv, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I wish people who don't really want to learn would quit going to college. If you just want to party and never grow up, you don't have to pay tuition to do so. Such people are one of the main reasons why a bachelors degree has lost its value. Leave college for those of us who want to be there.
- offwithyourtv, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2or
1) Don't go to college if you don't really want to learn. - manova, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Well, yes and no. Experience does help, but experience plus high GPA is even better. Someone with experience will trump someone with only a high GPA. I had a roommate that had an MBA in marketing but never worked a job, not even a part-time job washing dishes. It took him a year after graduating to find employment in marketing. On the other hand, if someone is looking at two applicants with similar experience, GPA is important. GPA is a measure of how well you learn new things, and in nearly every job, you will have to learn new things.
- smackhero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2funny, it was the exact opposite with me and my friends in our AP physics class. the class started with 30 people and the room was literally packed, but by the end of the year there was only about 12 of us split into 3 groups. our table would always be playing Big 2 during class while everyone else worked on homework and practice problems, but just about every test we had in class someone at our table would set the curve and another person in our group would get the highest score (since our teacher used the 2nd highest score in class to set the curve, the person with the highest score would actually get extra credit). one chick, who was well known to be an overachiever, and whose family were all harvard alumns, would always glare at us whenever we got our tests back smiling. i think we were the only ones to get 5's on the AP test as well. it probably pissed people off even more than two of us were juniors in the class full of seniors. =P
- dandonia, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2If i stopped pulling all nighters i would litterally never get work done. Though it is a really good tip, i dont remember the last assignment i handed in without 24 hours worth of work the day before. God i wish i could change but the likely hood is slim to none.
- way2muchsense, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I strongly disagree. In my field (computer science), high grades compensate quite a bit for lack of experience points. Since people with ten years' experience in Java don't grow on trees (and H1B visas are limited by law), you have to grab your share of recent college grads and hope you can train them to do what you want. You'd be surprised how many more interviews you get as a result of that "3.8" the career services rep told you to put on your resume. "3.8" means it probably won't cost nearly as much to teach you the company's software development practices and such as it would somebody who just barely squeaked by.
I hope this explains the high importance of squeezing every last hundredth of a GPA point out of your profs by whatever (legal) means necessary. I found treating college as an 8-5 job (regardless of when your classes meet on a particular day) and subjecting myself to a regular routine to be an effective means of achieving high grades, but your mileage may vary. - brakezone, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2GPA is definitely worth having. If it will benefit you or not depends upon the circumstance. The value of GPA is really just to help you eek out over the top of another candidate who might have all of the same qualifications.
One good way to get a good GPA is to make a determination upon what you need to do in order to get an A. If it means reading a textbook 5 times in order to get an A, than you have to make that determination and then do it. - jpmoney03, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Pf ft not really did the same thing got the same score. Calc using a graphing calculator is easy.
- theliteraryjo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Being a college professor, I'd have to say that those are right on the money. The only thing I'd add is, take part in the class discussions as well. You don't always have to be right, but just the fact that you are trying goes a long way.
- it5five, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Writing by hand is much better. I tried typing for one of my classes my first semester in college; it was terrible.
I started writing my notes by hand and did much better. - tjkisst, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I agree with you. Doing homework is definitely important.
- bdbr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'd have to wonder how easily one would get an internship with a poor GPA, though...these same tips to get you in the instructors' good graces are probably also good networking for internships & research.
But its true, once you've graduated it means less, and once you've landed your first job, no one cares about your GPA. - truebullfan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I'm in college right now and all those tips in this article are dead on. Going to the Professor's Office hrs really shows you care about the course and your grade. Sitting in the front isnt required but it sure prevents me from daydreaming b/c the professor is right in your face.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+5Why must we continue to perpetuated the great GPA con. Unless you are pursuing further education (I.E. in high school and going to college, in college and needing to go to grad school), having or having had a really high GPA means practically squat.
More and more studies are coming out that prove that a college degree is worth less than it ever has, that employers look for experience and personality traits more heavily now than schooling. If you've got the requisite bachelor's from wherever you went - most employers don't give a ***** if you're summa cum laude.
If you instead spent the time getting valuable, relevant work experience, or even notable charitable work - they'll choose Mr 2.5 (which they won't know about because you won't have told them) over a 3.7 any day of the week. - greyfedora, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'm a TA now and students almost never come to office hours, which is a shame because (a) it kindof makes me feel like I'm wasting my time and (b) even though I try not to let it happen, I have to at least admit the possibility that I unconsciously grade papers slightly better if I know the student. At the very least, I'll learn your name.
But there's another very important reason to go to office hours -- if you ever plan to go on to graduate school, law school, b-school, whatever, you'll very likely need academic references. Those are hard to find if none of your professors remember you. I speak from experience. - way2muchsense, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1If you want to know a racket, it's high school. Four years of unremitting ***** treating adolescents as if they were still children with unionized "professionals" supported by sometimes onerous property taxes pretending to educate them at the end of which waits a nearly worthless piece of paper and a minimum-wage job. All that particular piece of paper means is that you're not a complete moron. If colleges didn't want to see your high school transcript before accepting you, I'd recommend skipping the second half of that ordeal and getting a GED for what it's worth.
- UlicBelouve, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It's about retention, plus, I write my notes in different colors by hand, so I can skim later and get all the highlights (key terms in blue, critical points in red, etc).
- UlicBelouve, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I second the colors. In a Master's, and I have taken notes with 4 different color pens. Obviously, red to highlight, plus other colors for effect. This adds leaps and bounds to reviews. Plus, if a professor says "this might be on the exam", break out the highlighter and COAT that page in bold colors. I practically KNEW what obscure questions were going to be on the exam this way.
Crazy thing is, 5 years later, I can go back to many of my college notes, and know EXACTLY what the lecture was about, to the point that I can almost hear the professor again. - MrSidnet, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1bdbr hits it on the spot with this one. I retain much more information writing it by hand rather than typing. I find when I type I often fail to rem....wait...what was I saying again?
- MrSidnet, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Crysis comes out before exam time =(
(mid november) - Speed, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Let me guess: high school student, instead of university student? Doing homework is a must in university. University is 13 weeks of schooling, maybe 3 or 4 hours of the course a week, that's not a lot of time to learn the stuff.
- offwithyourtv, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It's true. And for some people, just going to every class, paying attention, and taking good notes is almost good enough by itself, so spending an hour or two the night before an exam just rereading your notes will get you an A without staying up all night to cram. Getting enough sleep the night before is also important to a lot of people. Not everyone can do this, I know, but when teachers say such things, they're wasting their breath. Studious people will study or do what they need to do to do well. People who go to college with partying as their top priority will likely continue their habits as well.
- inv1ctus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This is just like the "Steps to get more sleep" article. #8 STOP PLAYING WOW. 375 enchanting or 3.75 GPA? You decide.
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