High school seniors and parents across the country are now anxiously trying to decide which school will get their hard earned money for the next four years.
While most people place a great deal of emphasis on getting into college, fewer pay attention to what it takes to get out of school with a coveted degree in hand.
There’s nothing worse than college debt, except college debt with no degree to show for it. According to the Journal of Blacks In Higher Education, the Black student graduation rate hovers near a dismally low 42 percent.
As a graduate student I served as a Resident Advisor in several undergraduate dormitories. Additionally I worked as a tutor coordinator, charged with hiring, training, and assigning the university’s science tutors.
From this vantage point I could clearly see that it was rarely a lack of intelligence or ability that caused people to drop out of college. More often than not, poor time management skills and a hesitation to take advantage of all available resources sabotaged graduation dreams.
With that in mind, here are a few of my rules for helping students graduate with degree in hand. While some of them may seem like commonsense, I’ve seen these rules for success violated far too often.
Get A Tutor As Early As Possible
Believe it not most universities want their students to graduate, and they provide a wide variety of resources to help them do so.
Unfortunately, most students don’t take advantage of the help. Let me give you an example. Despite my university providing free tutoring, few students seeking out tutors at the beginning of the semester were African-American.
Many of them viewed tutoring as a sign of weakness. Ironically, the students who signed up for tutoring as early as possible weren’t academic weaklings. They were the straight A students.
Despite my appeals to Black students to get a tutor early, they took the idea of tutoring as an insult to their intelligence.
Often, I would find that almost insignificant failures would feed into the subconscious stereotype that maybe they were not up to the task, that they had been accepted only because of Affirmative Action. Too afraid or too embarrassed, these students would seek out a tutor only when it was too late – when their class performance had nosedived so out of control that it was almost impossible to recover.
The academically successful, on the other hand, understood that obtaining a tutor early was the key to academic success.
Take Advantage of Your Professor’s Office Hours
As an undergraduate, organic chemistry kicked my butt. For weeks I walked around in a state of perpetual confusion. That was until I decided to finally attend my professor’s office hours.
The thought of visiting the Nobel winning, gruff professor was an intimidating prospect, but when I actually went I realized what I had been missing out on. The session was like a small party with the professor lightheartedly clarifying what had at one time seemed like hieroglyphics with the greatest of ease.
And the biggest shocker of all was that the office hour was populated, not with students having the most trouble, but in large part with the best students in the class.
That’s when it first struck me that the academically successful were successful in large part because they took advantage of every resource available to them.
And it’s not just professors’ office hours that can put students on the fast track to success. Teaching Assistant office hours can be just as valuable. They also frequently provide clues as to what subject material will be emphasized on upcoming exams.
Never Skip Class
It’s the notorious slippery slope. You sleep in and miss your Early American History Class. Then it happens again. Before you know it you’re missing classes left and right.
But most professors are pretty hip to the fact that some people don’t take classes seriously. That’s why test questions frequently come straight from class discussion or lecture notes.
Besides you’re paying good money for the privilege. Think about it. If you take the cost of tuition and divide it by the number of hours you’re in class, you’ll realize that you’re paying at least a few hundred dollars for each hour of class time. Make sure you get what you pay for.
One final piece of advice, sit in the front row. It’s amazing how much better you pay attention when your professor’s gaze is only a few feet away.
Read the Material Before Class
The day of class should never be the first time you see the material. Understanding this can mean the difference between struggling in a class and acing it. It’s hard learning new material in class.
Between listening to what the professor is saying and trying to write it down, you never get the chance for comprehension.
The best way to learn is to read the chapter before hand. The professor’s lecture then allows you to fill in gaps, and cement your understanding of the material.
Don’t Study In The Undergrad Library
Perhaps the biggest thing that separates the successful and unsuccessful in college is time management. You can have an active social life and hit the books hard if you know how to manage your time.
The first principle in doing this effectively is understanding that one hour of solid studying is worth two hours of inefficient studying.
One hour of quiet, focused studying beats two hours of hitting the books with the music blasting, the television on, and your laptop opened to Facebook.
Likewise, finding the best place to study is the key to getting more done in less time. Ironically one of the worst places to study is the campus library. Yes, you may have the best of intentions, but since everybody studies in the library the place often becomes the social hub of the entire campus.
So where should you study to get the most done in less time? Try the library stacks where few people venture. Better yet, head on over to the medical, law, or business school libraries. All the top performers in my undergraduate class gravitated to these places.
Getting in is the first step. Getting out is the most important step. Once you realize that graduating has less to do with raw intelligence, and more to do with utilizing your resources and time effectively, you’ll be well on your way to a college a degree and the benefits it brings.
BMWK, what are some of your tips for succeeding in college?
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