2008 Woodie Awards
What To Do When Studying Isn't Enough
What You Can Do To Bring Up Your Grades
John Bailey
Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: Focus
When the professor hands out the syllabus at the start of the semester, there's all this info that you don't need to know: attendance expectations, readings, essay due dates, plagiarism rules. All you really care about are those percentages at the bottom of the page: how badly can you screw up the exams and still get that C-?
Of course, once you get two-thirds of the way through the semester, you take out that calculator and you work the numbers out. You start to feel nervous, maybe a little queasy. Because, see, with all the quizzes you skipped and homework you missed, you can't screw up the exams at all. In fact, to even get a B in the class, you need to get a hundred and forty nine on the final.
So what do you do, aside from curling up in the fetal position with a thick blanket and a keg of Keystone hooked up intravenously? That grade's gotta come up if you don't want to stay in academic limbo forever.
Hit Up the Library,
Unplug the Internet
Getting away from distractions is over half the studying battle.
"The library doesn't have distractions, like T.V. or [Smash Brothers] Brawl," says Eliza Caldwell, a 2nd-semester elementary education major. "And it's got really comfy green couches in the basement. It's great in theory; I don't study there as often as I should."
Someone once said that writing is 5 percent inspiration and 95 percent not getting distracted by the Internet. This holds true for studying, too; if you are hanging around your room, you've got all the tools for a fun study session: the Internet, video games, snacks, cheap beer in the fridge and lots of buddies. But what you probably don't have is the dedication and focus to ignore all these distractions and actually slog through those biology chapters. Four hours of studying only counts as two if you're reading Wikipedia articles about submarines half the time. There's nothing wrong with a few study breaks, but they should be short and beneficial. That's what makes the library so good: get up and grab a coffee at Bookworms, check your e-mail and maybe say hi to some folks - and then get right back to work.
Of course, once you get two-thirds of the way through the semester, you take out that calculator and you work the numbers out. You start to feel nervous, maybe a little queasy. Because, see, with all the quizzes you skipped and homework you missed, you can't screw up the exams at all. In fact, to even get a B in the class, you need to get a hundred and forty nine on the final.
So what do you do, aside from curling up in the fetal position with a thick blanket and a keg of Keystone hooked up intravenously? That grade's gotta come up if you don't want to stay in academic limbo forever.
Hit Up the Library,
Unplug the Internet
Getting away from distractions is over half the studying battle.
"The library doesn't have distractions, like T.V. or [Smash Brothers] Brawl," says Eliza Caldwell, a 2nd-semester elementary education major. "And it's got really comfy green couches in the basement. It's great in theory; I don't study there as often as I should."
Someone once said that writing is 5 percent inspiration and 95 percent not getting distracted by the Internet. This holds true for studying, too; if you are hanging around your room, you've got all the tools for a fun study session: the Internet, video games, snacks, cheap beer in the fridge and lots of buddies. But what you probably don't have is the dedication and focus to ignore all these distractions and actually slog through those biology chapters. Four hours of studying only counts as two if you're reading Wikipedia articles about submarines half the time. There's nothing wrong with a few study breaks, but they should be short and beneficial. That's what makes the library so good: get up and grab a coffee at Bookworms, check your e-mail and maybe say hi to some folks - and then get right back to work.
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