How to use syllabi effectively

College Life
1

<p>I'm trying to have a general idea of how to start studying and staying organized my first semester. High school was a hot mess of procrastination, not doing textbook readings, deadline creeps, and late-night cramming. I don't want that to happen again, especially since it won't be so easy to get good grades with that kind of non-strategy. </p>

<p>So I'm reading a lot on the importance of using the syllabi for staying on top of things. How do you use them? Do you give yourself a certain amount of days for each type of assignment (readings, projects, essays, exams, etc.)? Do professors announce when you are supposed to start and complete these assignments like high school teachers, or is it your responsibility? Do you have enough work in college courses that you have something to study or do for every course every day? The "school day" is so much shorter in college; how much independent learning am I supposed to be doing?</p>

<p>I'm just generally confused about this. Any help is welcome!</p>

2

<p>They don’t typically announce when you should start working on something, no (unless you’re in an intro/remedial English class, in which case you might be doing multiple drafts, etc.). </p>

<p>I look at the syllabus and take notes of dates- if I have a paper due in the middle of the semester, for example, I typically start working on it the week after school starts. That way, if you get stuck on something or need to order books from another library, you’re not in any kind of a time crunch. </p>

<p>I definitely have something to study everyday- you’ll probably be doing a bit of independent learning, especially if you skip class frequently. The professor won’t be holding your hand at all.</p>

3

<p>I’ve never had a professor tell me when to start an assignment. </p>

<p>For all my classes, dates for big projects, essays, and quizzes/tests were listed on the syllabus. I usually look through all of my class syllabus in the first week and determine which weeks or months have the most work due. From there, I’ll make note in my planner for all of the big assignments, and which week(s) I should definitely not slack on.</p>

<p>I think one of the biggest things that helped me with organization and staying on top of things is also having a daily planner. I’d write what is due when and then mentally plan when I should start so I’m not rushing. </p>

<p>High school for me was just the same as you described it, but I think college is a lot better. This is because college syllabus gives us all these due dates within the first week, whereas in high school my syllabus just described what I’ll get out of the class and stuff. I’m actually one of the most organized person and I procrastinate the least within my group of friends (surprisingly so) and I have to thank my planner and my strict schedule.</p>

4

<p>The way I deal with syllabi is by writing everything listed in the syllabus down in my planner and on my calendar. From there I can approach exams and assignments as I see fit depending on what’s going on.</p>

<p>I had one professor my first quarter who just said that we had to submit two papers at some point during the quarter, and from there didn’t even mention them beyond handing them back at the end of the quarter. This being a freshman class, a lot of people didn’t submit papers because the professor didn’t mention them…needless to say, you don’t want to be one of those people.</p>

<p>On the other hand, one professor my second quarter also required two papers, but wanted them to be on specific topics (the first one depending on your TA). In that case, obviously there was no way to start the paper until she gave us the assignment description, which left us with about a week to finish the paper. So in a way she did tell us when to start each paper just by the way she handled it.</p>

<p>If you mean in terms of a professor actually telling a class to “start [insert assignment] by [insert date]”, that just doesn’t happen. It’s up to you to pace yourself once you have an assignment. Heck, I’ve had a couple professors that just walk in on an exam date and start passing exams out, without reminding the class about the exam beforehand. You’re responsible for anything mentioned in the syllabus, regardless of if the professor reminds you about it.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the answers!</p>

<p>So, I get how you would use syllabi to study for exams; you study every day and start reviewing a week or so (Is this an appropriate amount of time?) before the exam. </p>

<p>But assignments… Say I see on the syllabus that I have a paper due in a month on Whatever Topic. Do I wait to learn the topic in class before I start writing the paper? Or do I start researching the information and writing it now? If it is the latter, won’t I be trying to learn later, more complex information while I am still learning and doing readings/assignments for the earlier, basic information? </p>

<p>What combination of a) studying that day’s information, b) reading up for the next day’s lecture, c) studying for future tests, and d) starting short-term assignments, and e) starting long-term assignments will I be doing every day?</p>

6

<p>OnMyWay,
There is no appropriate amount of time you need before the test to study. Likewise, there’s no amount of time you need to study in the first place. It all depends on you. For some classes, I needed to study two weeks in advance everyday to learn the material for the exam because the classes/books did not help. Other classes, I studied the night before as just a “review” because I learned most of the material well enough through in-class lectures. It depends on how well you learn, how your professor teaches, and basically just works best for you.</p>

<p>The same applies for the assignment. You can start your assignment a month in advance, even before you start talking about the topic. Or you can start a week before, after you have. I would recommend at least starting the topic just so you get an idea of what your teacher may want to see on the paper and what angle it is taught.</p>

<p>A lot of time spent in college is spent determining what kind of study habits work for you. If you need to study every day to make it work, then do so. Keep in mind though, you’ll be having 4-6 classes (and sometimes labs or discussion classes on top of this), and maybe some extracurricular activities or work. Even with my lightest workload of class, I never had the time to study every single day because I had other things to do. Needless to say, I survived. I managed a 4.0 my first semester. It’s all trial and error… find what works best for you. </p>

<p>Just give yourself appropriate time to study and start assignments/projects for your classes depending on the class itself. Anthropology, for example, I needed to study a lot and extensively because the lectures didn’t teach me anything I needed to know for the exams. But for a marriage and family therapy class I took, I learned a lot in class, but just needed to study the night before the exams for some vocab and technical terms used in the practice.</p>

7

<p>Professors typically won’t tell you when to start something, but in my experience many of them will remind you when big assignments are coming up. This definitely depends on the school/department/level/professor though, so don’t count on it.</p>

<p>What’s worked out really well for me is getting one of those dry-erase calendars and writing all my assignments on it. I find this better than a normal calendar for two main reasons. First of all, I don’t get blindsided by assignments at the beginning of the month because I rewrite the calendar every few weeks so I can always see my assignments for the coming few weeks (like if I’m in the third week of my five-week calendar, I’ll shift everything up two weeks so I can see farther). Second, if due dates are changed, I can change them around without the calendar getting messy. I color-code this calendar with red for tests, green for projects, blue for writing assignments, and black for anything non-academic. Obviously some of this might not work for you, but it’s made my life a lot easier because I always have a sense of what’s coming up, so I know what to prioritize.</p>

8

<p>As a professor, let me share my thinking when I prepare a syllabus.</p>

<p>A lot of the information, especially in those huge ones, is university mandated content - when the tutoring center is open, how to use the online course management system, what the plagiarism and grade challenge policies include. But much of it is specific to my class, and it can give you some clues into what’s important to your professor. There’s often a paragraph-length description of the class - this may be slightly different from the official description in the course catalog. If there’s a unique theme I’m emphasizing for the semester, it will be here.</p>

<p>Both the original and the university generated content are like a FAQ. Make sure to review the syllabus before emailing your prof with a question, like “can I email my paper to you?” or “how many absences may I have?” </p>

<p>Another important part is the breakdown of how your grade is calculated. Some classes use a point system (the course is worth, say, 1000 points, and each assignment carries a specific point value) while others use a weighted percentage (the course is worth 100% and each assignment is worth, say, 10% or 13.5% of that). (Note that both end up with the same kind of weighting for assignments!) You need to understand two things from this section: (1) what the requirements are for each assignment - if your prof is organized, there should be precise info for everything like format requirements, etc, (2) what the point value/percentage is for each item. Clearly, you want to spend more effort working on something that’s 20% of your grade rather than something that’s worth 1%. </p>

<p>Don’t forget that those 1% or one point items add up, however. One of the biggest surprises some students get at the end of the term is that they’ve ignored lots of the low stakes assignments, thinking, “it’s only 1% of the grade so it doesn’t matter that much” only to discover that there were 20 of them and now the very highest score they can possibly earn is an 80.</p>

<p>The final important part of the syllabus and the page that I use the most is the calendar for the semester. This lists readings, topics, assignments etc. on a weekly basis (some profs may even do daily listings). My hope is that you will have reviewed the readings before class - those who do immediately get a better understanding of what is covered in the lecture - and then review them a second time following our session. The deadlines remain as posted, with no reminders from me after the first week, unless there’s some extenuating circumstance that causes me to offer an extension (usually weather related). </p>

<p>The suggestions to use some sort of print or electronic calendar/planner sound good to me. My best students all seem to have this kind of organization.</p>

9

<p>Thank you, everyone!</p>