Academics: How to Prepare

College Life
1

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>So, I come from a pretty lame high school. And by that I mean no one on CC even realizes schools as bad as mine exist. I have transferred into a slightly better school, but it's still not a great school by any stretch of the term. I'm matriculating at Stanford in the fall. I'd like to get a head start on improving my skills. I love to learn and I'm easily bored, so I'm looking for books to read, practices to complete, and so on and so forth. I'm particularly interested in improvement in writing, but also reading, studying, and anything else that seems important. I'm planning out the spring and the summer. So far I'm going to read some classics, consider Study Hacks, and work on some grammar and vocabulary (though that's not really college related). What do you guys think? Any good books out there?</p>

<p>applicannot</p>

2

<p>Hiya, </p>

<p>I’ve read lots of great classics; my all time favorites are To Kill a Mockingbird abd Siddhartha. </p>

<p>Books like Animal Farm, 1884, Brave New World, The Handmaids Tale, etc. are incredible. </p>

<p>I’d suggest familiarizing yourself with foreign books that are classics, such as The Metamorphosis, Love in the Time of Cholera, the Sorrow of War, and Kiss of the Spider Woman. </p>

<p>I’d suggest reading a lot of Shakespeare… however, I’m not sure you’d be able to truly appreciate it without understanding the eloquence and brilliance of the language, the blatant innuendos, and just the amazing structural beauty within it. By all means, read it, multiple times, however, don’t continue reading Shakespeare if all you get out of it is a watered down story. (My favorite is The Tempest) </p>

<p>omg. Read Woman Warrior. It’s not a classic, but, Kingston is alive, well, in California, teaching at Berkeley, and her memoirs are widely appreciated, adored, commended, and thought of as brilliant. </p>

<p>These are just some suggestions =] I’d say keep an open mind and read all you can, however, these books will definitely give you multiple perspectives, views, and broaden your horizons.</p>

3

<p>Don’t worry too much about this. I went from a really lame high school to UChicago, and I was fine. By really lame, I mean no honors/AP courses, and rural Midwestern. So I actually mean it when I say lame. Anyway, I adjusted to the workload just fine without a bunch of preparation.</p>

<p>The biggest issue for you, as for anyone entering college, will be time management. Try to read books quickly, since it’s likely that you’ll end up doing ~200 pages of reading per week between your classes. For writing, it might be a good idea to practice outlining or something. Since you presumably haven’t had a lot of experience writing essays, outlining will help you finish them a lot faster, and you can keep yourself from agonizing over your points this way. Another thing with essays is that it’s a lot harder to get away with filler material, so it all has to be good.</p>

<p>That said, if you’re going to be taking hard science courses from the beginning (ie if you’re a biology major), it may be a good idea to brush up on some things. You’ll be up against people who have much better science backgrounds than you do, and this is one area where it’s hard to catch up. For math, I really wasn’t any worse off than my peers at UChicago, since everything is proof-based and not many people had experience with that. I guess all I can say there is that you should be aware that math can be written in sentences; it’s not all formulas and calculations.</p>

<p>Feel free to PM me if you’d like some more specific information.</p>

4

<p>Read “Jazz” by Toni Morrison. Great book.</p>

5

<p>I would agree that time management is the biggest issue.</p>

<p>The things you’re suggesting sound awesome, but don’t really mimic college, because you’d theoretically have an unlimited amount of time/energy to put into reading, studying, etc. In high school, I would get a few really difficult assignments, but they were spread out and I could put 100% effort into them. In college, every single assignment is long/intense, and this was the biggest adjustment for me. Exams tended to cluster at the same times of the semester.</p>

<p>For the hard sciences (intro bio/chem), make sure you have the basics down. The first few weeks of college are an adjustment period and it’s hard enough to figure everything out without having to worry that you’re missing some fundamental concept that will haunt you for the rest of the semester. As someone who took Bio without having taken Bio since ninth grade, it’s a good idea to brush up on the broad concepts just to refresh your memory.</p>

<p>One final piece of advice I would give is to choose your first semester course schedule wisely. Go easier on yourself than you think you should. I go to a high-ranked university and we’re all overachievers here…in high school, we would’ve taken insanely hard schedules. But in college, even the classes that are relatively easy are basically hard. It’s to no one’s advantage to bite off more than you can chew your first semester. A crucial part of first semester involves a lot of non-academic stuff (physical health, mental health, transitioning, etc.) and you don’t need the added stress of trying to do more than you can handle academically.</p>

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<p>I agree. I think most entering freshmen are smart enough for the college rigor but don’t really know how to manage time and have trouble transitioning to living on their own. If anything, I’d try to read all the college related books like The Naked Roommate, Cal Newport Books, etc just to get a good feel what college is like. It’ll help you understand better how college works and you’ll feel prepared and will not be surprised by the college life.</p>

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<p>@applicannot: OMG, I was just going to start a thread like this, even though I come from what is regarded as a very rigorous HS. Even I’m worried! Also, when you say “Study Hacks” do you mean Cal Newport’s blogs or just study hacks in general?</p>

<p>@wisdom86: Regarding your love for To Kill a Mockingbird, have you ever read this article that just rips into it? It was in Harpers, I think and it just went on and on about how it did not deserve to be called a “classic”. Not putting down your choice at all, just interested if you ever read the article.</p>

<p>@FutureCFO: I’ve also read all of Cal Newport’s books, what do you think of his suggestions? Which ones were you able to pull off yourself? Which ones did you ignore?</p>

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<p>Thanks for the responses. My idea isn’t to “mimic” college in any way, but just to keep myself working over the summer in hopes of some improvement. I do something like this every summer; this year it’s just college related. I did SAT improvement after ninth and tenth grade (not studying SAT books, but working on math word problems, vocabulary, and reading), grammar and argumentation after eleventh grade, etc. I did the same thing in middle school. I literally can’t stand two and a half months without learning or having a project. I can’t afford CC classes (and don’t have time for them), so those aren’t an option.</p>

<p>I won’t be taking any hard science classes, at least not the first year. The only science-related majors I’ve ever considered were Human Biology and Earth Systems, but I wouldn’t start those sequences until my freshman year (with the exception of possibly chem for Human Biology, but I might not major in that because I hate chem and would never pass a whole class on it).</p>

<p>When I said Study Hacks, I was referring to Cal Newport. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in ninth grade.</p>

<p>I don’t really have time management issues, or at least they’re not severe. I work 25 hours a week, volunteer for 10 more, and take what is at my school considered a rigorous courseload. Plus, I budget my free time in the summer to do academically-related things (though I find them enjoyable). Of course there will be an adjustment, but it shouldn’t be TOO bad. On the other hand, I’ve never studied for anything in my life, discounting the SAT. I’ve never even really done homework, and I can count the number of five paragraph essays I’ve written on fingers and toes. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything longer than that… maybe two or three times in high school.</p>

<p>At Stanford, I’ve read that a usual courseload is three serious classes and one less serious class per quarter. I think I’ll still to just three serious classes, which brings my credit total to 13 anyway (fuzzy majors, I’ve read, usually take 16-18 credits per quarter and techies take 18-20). That’s my required humanities sequence, Arabic, and hopefully my required writing classes (I’m going to petition to have it changed to the fall quarter if I don’t get it; it’ll be painful but my courseload will be easy and I need it). I may start with another easier class - like an intro seminar - and then see during add/drop week.</p>

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<p>If you want to work on academic argumentation, which will help you a lot with your writing, I would suggest “They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing.” This book was recommended by my English professor; he said that all college students should read it.</p>

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<p>@Citizen: Regarding Newport’s books, I think they’ve helped me a good deal and all but honestly, just in my opinion, did not teach me anything “new.” The books just reassured me what needs to be done to get “Straight A’s in College” such as hard work, motivation, breaks between long hours, dividing up work into several days, etc. Maybe because I had practiced these methods myself without any introduction during High School and thus were the reasons I just felt the methods were reassuring. As for that other book on “How to Succeed in College,” I think it’s also an imperative read although some topics I disagree with (e.g. drop a course per semester, no to-do lists). Like Newport emphasizes, he’s not saying that you follow all his methods for success. He’s saying that you need to find your own niche and balance and make the methods work for YOU. </p>

<p>But if I could list several ways entering freshmen can have success… </p>

<ol>
<li>Time management/organization</li>
<li>True motivation/desire to succeed and stay positive</li>
<li>Willingness to take risks and make mistakes </li>
<li>Putting yourself out there for clubs/organizations/dorm floor/etc</li>
<li>Emotional stability </li>
</ol>

<p>Note: Not sure if this gives me any credibility but I had a 3.6 weighted GPA in a very competitive HS with a difficult grading scale and a big upward trend (I wasn’t always such a studious person). I currently attend a top 50 University and after my first semester of college I have a GPA of approx. 3.5. PM me if ya got any questions</p>