<p>Next semester I'm going to have a lot of reading and writing to do, and I'd appreciate any advice or anecdotes on how to get through them.</p>
<p>I have a foreign language composition class, an ancient rhetoric class, a political science class, and then 2 more foreign language classes (18 credits total). I had 16 credits this past semester and managed to earn a 3.95, but I feel that these will be harder than the ones I took. </p>
<p>Thanks for the help, and I hope everyone has a safe, happy new year!</p>
<p>Always keep up on your readings. Read ahead, if possible. Readings are generally specified on the course syllabi. Scope them all out at the beginning of the semester to get a rough idea of exactly how much reading will be required in each course each week, and schedule time accordingly. If you’re caught up on the readings, it’s never a bad idea to read ahead to the next day’s readings.</p>
<p>Start writing projects ASAP! This is advice that I never followed, and always regretted. I always, without fail, put my writing projects off for far too long. I’ve always done really well on my various writing projects, but it sucks when you have to crank out a 15 page paper in like 2 days. Get started on them early. That’s even more important when you have several writing intensive courses. The last thing you want to happen is realizing all of a sudden that you have three different papers due in the next few days, with barely any work completed yet. I can promise you, that will not be a fun scenario.</p>
<p>I’m a writing and rhetoric major, and I can tell you that ancient rhetoric is no walk in the park. It has such powerful, applicable content, and you really need to understand the theory before you can effectively utilize it. This is where progymnasmata comes in. I’m sure you’ll learn about it in your course, but it’s how the ancients trained students to use rhetoric. They’d make them do elementary exercises where they’d try to mimic and execute certain principles on their own. Essentially, your time in that course will be one big progymnasmata. You’ll be reading things and listening to lectures with the aim of you being able to take something away from it. </p>
<p>Comfortablycurt is right in that you should always keep up with your readings and start early with your papers. The writing faculty at my university are very conference-happy, so what I actually do is set up a conference with them before I even finish my paper. That way I absolutely HAVE to write it because I already made a commitment to them. I try and give myself at least a couple days to crank out the draft, but sometimes it’s only one. That may sound weird, but it’s a way of forcing yourself to get down to work. </p>
<p>As for the foreign language stuff, just be careful that you can keep up with all of it. I don’t know if the other 2 are conversation or literature courses, but just make sure you practice your language every day so that can continue to build your fluency and mastery of it. </p>
<p>Plug in all your due dates and schedules in your planner or electronic program, make a reasonable plan, and stick to your plan. If you find yourself drowning, ask for help. With the right attitude and commitment, you can for sure get through it!</p>
<p>If your college has a writing center, take advantage of it to have help reviewing your drafts. Also, if you have to make appointments with them, doing that gives you a deadline to get your draft done to help you stay on track and not procrastinate.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the help! I really appreciate it. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any practical tips about how to split up reading? Like, do the traditional “divide pages by number of days” or “read X amount of hours per night”? A lot of people say to just lock yourself up in a room and get it done, but I lose my focus after 45-60 minutes. I’m one who tries to read in-depth so I can remember everything, but I realize that I might be getting several chapters and supplemental readings a night.</p>
<p>Sparknotes and very well taken class notes. </p>
<p>For my philosophy class the only complete reading I did was the first one and I slowly read less and less until the last one which I didn’t even skim through :D</p>
<p>I definitely recommend just actually doing the reading. It’s so much simpler. I’m especially astounded that the above poster managed to get away with not doing it in philosophy, of all classes!!</p>
<p>If I promise myself that I’ll read, say, 10 pages, I find that I end up reading way farther - the hardest part is opening the book! I also try to mix it in with other types of hw like writing or problem sets or something.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t ration my reading out by page amounts or by lengths of time. If I know that I need to read chapter 3, I’ll just sit down and start reading it. If my attention starts wandering after an hour or so, I’ll take a 10-15 minute break and then come back to it. I usually just keep going until I finish. </p>
<p>Some classes will assign something like “chapters 3-6” for a given unit of the course, and I’ll just kind of break them up. I’ll read one chapter one day, another chapter another day etc. I tend to do more of my readings on the weekend.</p>
<p>Yeah, the “divide pages by number of days to do it” method is kind of dumb, IMO. What if you’re right in the middle of and intrigued with a chapter and then just stop? If anything, I agree with going chapter-by-chapter since you’ll at least get some closure. Always keep going and read more than you alloted if you feel that you’re in the zone and if you have extra time. </p>
<p>I get kind of distracted as well, and I try and give myself a quiet environment and let myself go at my own pace. If I start to get antsy, I’ll jump up and walk around for a little bit, thinking about what I read and letting myself recharge. Then I’ll dive back in and take as many little “charge walks” as necessary. </p>
<p>You might be able to get away with some skimming, but that depends on the class and what your professor expects of you. I (shamefully) once didn’t even read a few parts of this especially awful book in a lit class but got the gist of what was said through class discussion. The midterm had questions about the stuff we talked about, so I lucked out. If it was more detailed, I probably would have been screwed. Just do all the reading at first and then adjust as you get to know the professor more.</p>
<p>^ I think certain kinds of philosophy classes can be like that. I had a philosophy of logic class this past fall semester and only opened the book for problem sets, which I partially fudged anyway, and I got a 98% in the class. My professor had very simple, clear notes, and his tests and quizzes were based on the book problems but mainly from the book problems he did in class. He had a few problems from the examples in the chapters, but even though I didn’t read them, I was able to figure them out from his simplified version in class. </p>
<p>So again, I think it truly depends on the professor. They hold all the power to either make or break your semester!</p>
<p>There are definitely classes where you can just skim the readings, or just skip entire sections. I had an Intro to the Humanities class a couple semesters ago that was basically about art analysis/interpretation, and I did very little of the assigned reading. I did it all until the first exam, and the vast majority of the material was over the stuff covered in lecture. After that I just kind of skimmed the readings to pull out the important parts, and saved quite a few hours that I could then devote to more important classes. I still pulled off something like a 96% in the class.</p>
<p>You’ve just gotta feel it out. There are classes where the reading is absolutely crucial.</p>
<p>As wonderful as skimming sounds, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that this semester. I’ve been looking through my textbooks and my syllabi, and I’m kind of panicking. </p>
<p>The texts themselves are very dull and concise to the point that every line is practically important. My professors also have extra readings posted for us to do, and we have to read a couple extra books in my poly sci class. Essentially, I’m worried that I won’t have time to read and fully absorb everything. </p>
<p>In order for me to fully understand content and be able to apply it, I have to read at a slow pace while mulling it over. It usually takes me about an hour and a half to read and take notes on a 20 page scholarly article. With this workload, I’m seriously looking at maybe 4+ hours of reading every night, more if I go a day without.</p>
<p>Is that normal for a humanities course load? How can professors expect you to remember everything?! I know for certain my Ancient Rhetoric professor expects this because she posted about us being able to demonstrate our text’s points and lessons on our own in a journal type thing. I just don’t know if I can do it all!</p>
<p>I also have a question on dealing with reading-intensive classes. (Sorry, OP, for using this thread to ask a personal question. But I’m sure this pertains to you too!)</p>
<p>I always keep up with my readings for my classes. But when it comes to midterms and exams, I have trouble recalling the content / details from the readings (except the recent ones). Therefore, I have to re-read all of them for reviewing!!! It is extremely frustrating! </p>
<p>Also, I’ve tried taken notes while reading them but that wasn’t super-helpful. Professors tend to ask the UNNECESSARY details from the readings. For instance, there was this one question asking what the author used for the metaphor for this concept or something. This metaphor appeared only once in the reading, which was like 50-pages long! How on earth am I supposed to remember that??? </p>
<p>If a professor is asking a question about a given metaphor, than it likely isn’t ‘unnecessary.’ Metaphors can sometimes be the best way to really understand a given concept. </p>
<p>Personally, I rarely read back through things. I’ll sometimes skim through chapters again before an exam/finals, but it’s really just to hit the main points. I tend to have a pretty solid memory for things that I read though; not everyone does. It’s not something that I usually do, but a lot of people highlight the main points in their readings for quick reference. </p>
<p>What I’ve done in the past is jot down page numbers in my notes for sections of the reading that are relevant to a given section of my lecture notes. That way when I read through my notes again, I know to “go to page 132” for more information on this specific point. It’s not something that I do frequently, but I have in the past in certain classes that were more reading intensive.</p>
I’ve been looking through my textbooks and my syllabi, and I’m kind of panicking. </p>