This past year was freshmen for me. While my grades were fine and I am one of the top students ( UW average of 94), I know that if I were more proactive I could have done better, I was in all honors classes. Here are some things I have learned that were helpful to me:
Find an organizational method that works for you. I had an agenda book that the school gives everyone and I tried using it but never could get into it. I would forget to write assignments down, or didn’t look at it at home. I did find an app that works great! It’s called myHomework. It’s on my iPad mini and you can add your classes to it and add assignments under different types (quiz, test, homework, project, lab etc.). I also have the app set up so a notification appears a day before something is due. There is also a calendar on the app that automatically puts any assignments you have added to it, and a circle symbolizes an assignment, so you can see how many things are due any given day. I’ve seen some people who use an agenda book that works for them, or some people use a HUGE wall calendar to write down assignments.
If you don’t understand material and are at home and can’t contact or stay after school with a teacher, use Khan academy. I prepared for a college placement math test and it was SO helpful. I’ve browsed through some of the subjects, and there are just so many! Especially in math and science. Of course, if you have the chance, go see your teacher, they’ll be able to answer specific questions or explain it in multiple ways as opposed to Khan Academy.
Determine which ECs are the biggest “time sucks” (not a negative connotation, but which ones are most time intensive). I did cross country, which met from 2-5 everyday, and meets went from 2-8 and you couldn’t do homework because you had warm ups. I wasn’t good at it, nor was I passionate about it and it was taking time away from things that I was passionate about or was important to me, so I am dropping it this year. I play saxophone and had lots of homework, so I didn’t have much time to practice because of XC and I had homework.
When your teacher says “there’s a chapter x test in 2 weeks”, don’t wait until the last two days to study… Or the night before… Begin studying a little bit every day! Maybe just 20-30 minutes the first few days, and then increase as more material is added. If you study material as you get it, it will be MUCH more manageable then cramming EVERYTHING the night before… Which leads to this point.
It has been proven that as the night goes on, the brain is not as good as absorbing information and retaining it (like 11 PM?). I read this a while ago, so I don’t remember the exact facts, but don’t cram the night before.
If you have a study hall, USE IT. Do not goof off or play on your phone. Use it to get some homework done and you’ll have one less thing to do at home.
When you get home, have a snack but don’t watch TV or YouTube… I found myself doing this and saying “well just after this (20 minute) video, I’ll do homework” and then 2 hours later I realized I was still watching YouTube… To combat this, I began doing this towards the end of the year:
Since I often was too distracted when I got home, in the last semester, I stayed after school almost everyday, whether or not I needed extra help, until 4 (so 2 hours) and I did homework. And if while I was studying I needed extra help, I would just walk down the hall and find my teacher! Usually what I did was I went into my biology classroom and used a table as my work base. My bio teacher was fine with me chilling in his room, and he usually had kids after school with questions or extra help so he was there anyways (awesome teacher). Of course, ask a teacher whether they are okay with this, don’t just show up in their room one day!
A lot of these tips I developed towards the end of my freshmen year, but this upcoming year I hope to implement them right from the start!
