Hey guys,
So I am worried and I would like some reassurance or if anyone can help me with some study tips that would be great! So I just finished my first year at UT Austin in Engineering and ended up with a GPA of 2.86/4.0 which I think is terrible, because I know I can do better. My goal is to bring it up to at least a 3.4 by the time I graduate and a 3.5 would be ideal. Do you think it is possible and what are some study tips that anyone can recommend?
Thank you so much!!
First, ask yourself, “What happened?” Did you wait until the last minute to study or get help? Did you spend too much time having fun and not studying? Were you studying hard but the tests always seemed to be material that you didn’t expect or study? Did the material just never seem to “click” in your head? Did you overload yourself?
I don’t need answers to these questions, but these are questions a lot of freshmen who are in this position need to seriously consider for themselves.
It is mathematically possible to get a 3.5 by the time that you graduate. As an approximation, your freshman year is only 25% of your time in college. Thus, you’ve got about 75% remaining. So you made a 2.86 your first year, and you need to know the average GPA, x, to make to get that back up to a 3.5 by graduation. Solve for x:
0.25(2.86) + 0.75x = 3.5
And we get that x = 3.713333…
Since you’re at UT Austin, that means you’ve got to make at least an A- average for your next three years. Sound doable? Yes? Awesome.
Study tips that I can recommend? Read the textbook and make flashcards of important facts or key problems. Go over them ad nauseum and drill, drill, drill them. You may not be explicitly tested over the details, but you need to commit that stuff to memory as if it were a key moment from your life like your last birthday, or high school graduation. This is (or was, I’m not sure) the learning style in many parts of Asia like China and India.
Do not wait until the last minute to get help. You don’t need to live and breathe the material to get an A. You can split it up into small portions each day. Go to the tutoring center if you’re stuck. Come with questions and honestly have attempted the problem before seeking help. The tutor is more likely to help you step-by-step if you have some progress, even if wrong.
If it’s after-hours to get help, consult YouTube. There are lots of explanations from people just like you or me who didn’t like the explanations already out there, so they set out to make the material clearer for others than it was for them at the time.
@cameraphone thank you so much! that was a sigh of relief and i will try those study tips!!
So to do well, consider the following:
GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!
Go to Professor’s office hours and Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”
If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.
Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.
Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
If you feel you need to withdraw from a class, talk to your adviser as to which one might be the best …you may do better when you have less classes to focus on. But some classes may be pre-reqs and will mess your sequence of classes up.
For your tests, can you evaluate what went wrong? Did you never read that topic? Did you not do the homework for it? Do you kind of remember it but forgot what to do? Then next time change the way you study…there may be a study skill center at your college.
How much time outside of class do you spend studying/doing homework? It is generally expected that for each hour in class, you spend 2-3 outside doing homework. Treat this like a full time job.
At first, don’t spend too much time other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)
If you run into any social/health/family troubles (you are sick, your parents are sick, someone died, broke up with boy/girlfriend, suddenly depressed/anxiety etcetc) then immediately go to the counseling center and talk to them. Talk to the dean of students about coordinating your classes…e.g. sometimes you can take a medical withdrawal. Or you could withdraw from a particular class to free up time for the others.Sometimes you can take an incomplete if you are doing well and mostly finished the semester and suddenly get pneumonia/in a car accident (happened to me)…you can heal and take the final first thing the next semester. But talk to your adviser about that too.
At the beginning of the semester, read the syllabus for each class. It tells you what you will be doing and when tests/HW/papers are due. Put all of that in your calendar. The professor may remind you of things, but it is all there for you to see so take initiative and look at it.
Make sure you understand how to use your online class system…Login to it, read what there is for your classes, know how to upload assignments (if that is what the prof wants).
If you get an assignment…make sure to read the instructions and do all the tasks on the assignment. Look at the rubric and make sure you have covered everything.
If you are not sure what to do, go EARLY to the professors office hours…not the day before the assignment is due.
You might think that this is all completely obvious, but I have read many stories on this and other websites where people did not do the above and then are asking for help on academic appeal letters.