College 101

 Syllabus Week📚

First week of school is always going to be the easiest week, at least for those who are going into their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year. If it is your first year, do not panic. Let the professors introduce themselves and the class. Your first day of the semester should be easy. If you already started college, then you must have experience how quick some professors go over the syllabus and then go straight into lecture. Congratulations, you have are no ahead that other most classes. If your professor did not do that, you will get to experience it in upcoming years. 

The first week is a perfect time to build your routine. Knowing when to take breaks, when to study, take lunch, or even take a nap. Start planning ahead as well. There are times when professors will state what exams or important assignments coming up, write those down in your planner or make a note of it in your phone. 

On syllabus week, you normally don’t have big assignments to worry about. The most you have to get done is take a syllabus quiz, introduce yourself in a discussion post, and/or get your textbook for the class. Most of these assignments are a week grace period but there are some professors that give more time in case more people get added. Finishing those assignments are easy to do and don’t take longer than 5 minutes to get done, get them out of the way before the deadline to let you enjoy the weekend. One tip I will give is to never buy a textbook from your university’s bookstore. The prices on these textbooks can be a lot and half 90% of the time you can find them at a cheaper price if they are being rented or bought on a different place such as Amazon. I have found most of my textbooks on Amazon and have rented them out or bought used since they are cheaper. There are going to be some textbooks or lab manuals you will have to purchase at the bookstore.

1st Official Lecture Week📚

Don’t try to rush and understand the very first lectures that are being taught. I have done that a couple of times and it has confused me. Look over the lectures before the start of your class. Read over the slides to give you an introduction of what the lecture will be about. Once class starts take notes or annotate. When doing this, keep in mind of what is important, topics you don’t understand highlight or underline, topics you want to revisit and study more, and bookmark these slides to go back and review. After your lectures are over, give yourself a break until you have established a time to study. With all the notes/annotations you made, review them by active recall. This will help you understand the topics more and better prepare for quizzes/tests or midterms. For better studying resources, make a study group. Topics are easier to understand when your peers teach it to you as well. Makes it less confusing than a professor teaching. Even searching up a YouTube videos helps!!