ARTICLE SUMMARY

This article discusses four important areas that you need to master if you want to get good grades in college.

There are four key areas that you need to master if you want to learn how to do well in your classes. In order of importance, these four areas are: 

1. Lecture Attendance
2. Note Taking Strategies
3. How to study well
4. Assignment Mastery

Lecture Attendance

By all means, you must make it a top priority to attend all your classes. I’ll prove to why you cannot afford to miss even one lecture.

Consider how long a semester is… About four months, give or take a week or two?

If we assume that a semester is 14 weeks long (the typical duration of 3.5 months), that means you will have anywhere from 14 – 42 lectures each semester, per course. That is, some courses have lectures three times per week while others only have one very long lecture each week, hence the range.

Lets consider a course that has three lectures per week. What if you miss just one class. Will your absence make a huge difference and hurt you in the long run?  That’s a good question… One lecture (out of 42 in total) accounts for about 2.5% of the course material. If you miss out on 2.5% of the instruction, you are more likely to loose out on 2.5% of your grade when all is said and done. And, believe me, I am not making this up!

You could flip my example on it’s head and look at it another way: what if you were guaranteed a 2.5% increase to your grade for each lecture you attend over the entire semester, would you miss even a single class? My money’s on you being present for all lectures! In fact, you will probably be the first one there, seated right in the front row, ready to claim another increase in your grade.

Essentially, I think we can all agree that you would attend all 42 sessions in order to get 100% in the course. Truth be told, this scenario is not entirely a fairytale; there is a correlation in reality that’s very similar. Sure, you don’t just get a free ride (and collect 2.5% overtime you past ‘go’ and take a seat for an hour in your lecture hall), but by being present (and, I mean fully present and ready to take notes), you will absorb an additional 2.5% of the course material each time. As such, you will notice the boost (or, reduction) in your grade accordingly. Case in point: miss even a single lecture and you can guarantee a reduction in your grades. It’s just that simple.

Note Taking Strategies

Read the section on College Note Taking for more in-depth advice about taking notes in your classes. In terms of getting good grades, understand that your prize (ie: getting good grades) lies in learning how to take good notes during lecture. I think that I have successfully proven why attendance is important but just imagine how tragic it would be if you attended all your lectures and still missed out on key concepts. This happens to a lot of well-intentioned students. They attend each and every class but still struggle to capture all the relevant information that they need to know. Hence, if you are going to attend class (and, hopefully I’ve done a good job of convincing you to always go), you have a lot to gain by getting some sharp note-taking skills into your arsenal of skills.

Believe me when I tell you: effective note taking is not as easy as showing up and passively taking notes while the professor speaks. You have to prepare for lectures in advance and then go to each session, having exposed yourself to the material adequately (that is, at least once). If you approach your note taking strategy this way, you will end up taking away a lot more from each lecture. The better you become at capturing everything that is intended to be taught in each lecture, the sooner you will get all those A’s you’re longing for.

How to Study Well

If you master the first two key areas, you will have an easier time studying.

Imagine being able to get through all of your work faster than you ever have before, and at the same time, having no problems with retention.

You may have a hard time believeing this but studying does not have to be a chore. Once you learn how to capture everything that’s relevant in lecture, you can then deploy other strategies to get good grades, like daily review. Your notes will be so focused (as they should be) that daily review will very easy to do. If you keep up the disciplined effort of reviewing everyday, come exam time, you will not haveto slave away for hours on end. Instead, you will simply continue doing your ‘daily review,’ amongst other light study activities in order to prepare for your test. The end result? You will feel more confident when you walk into an exam session.

Assignment Mastery

There are a few key points to understand about assignments. The first and most important one is to do what is being asked. Oddly enough, so many students fail to do what is being asked of them. Perhaps they don’t understand the assignment clearly (in which case, they should get help) or they get carried away and make the assignment their personal pet project and in the process, get distracted away from what the project is really about, etc. Keep it simple. Make sure you do what is asked of you and get clarification if you need it. The second point is to start as soon as it is assigned. Professors understand the demands that students face during a semester (in terms of time constraints). Yes, they do care about your chances for success, believe it or not! As such, when professors hand out an assignment, they are essentially giving it to you at the most opportune time so that you can do well. If you get a project assigned early on in the semester, but get some advice from your professor to hold of until he/she says advises you to start, that is different. In this case, you can wait. However, start projects as soon as they’re assigned. You should also know: professors will not tell you to start right away. That onus falls upon you. The final point I’d like to make is to constantly be in contact with your professor as you work your way through your assignment, structuring it and putting it all together. You will most certainly have questions as you go about your project and even if you don’t, you could be dogn something wrong and not even know it (a common mistake). If that’s the case, your professor will be sure to guide you back home (a life saver, and valuable grade booster). Case in point: your professor is a valuable resource so utilize him or her to your full advantage. And, by the way, they will be more than happy to oblige and help you whenever you need assistance.

Master the four key areas I’ve discussed above and you will be well on your way to getting good grades in all your college-level courses. It’s not hard, you just need to know what to do and then have the discipline to follow through.

Best of luck!

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