How can you succeed in college

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Student Loans. Personal Loans. Renee Layberry. Being successful in college means getting the best grades you can. This sets you up for success after college, both academically and financially. But what does success really look like when you break it down? To be a successful college student, you need to create good habits right from the start. Building those good habits will set the foundation for a strong and efficient work ethic. If there was a playbook on how to be a successful college student, this is what it would look like.

Setting goals before each term will help you keep your academic and financial priorities in check, especially when your schedule starts getting busy. Setting financial goals to repay your student loans will benefit you in the long run more on this in point five. There are several ways to go about this. A great method is the S. There are 5 elements to this method of goal setting.

Be specific. Instead of just saying you want to do well in your calculus class or get into a better schedule , define exactly the outcome you want to achieve. You might want to improve by a full letter grade, or get up every weekday at 8 a. Say no to friends who want to play when your school work needs to be done and schedule another and better time with them. Explain lessons to yourself. This is self-teaching.

Read a paragraph in your text and then explain what you learned out loud in your own words. Read it again if you did not understand it. Do not go to the next paragraph until you think you understood the preceding one. Create practice quizzes and tests. Self-testing is powerful.

Go through your class notes and textbook. Write down every question you think could be on the test. Then give yourself your own quiz and grade it before you take the one in class. Focus your attention. Do not multi-task and divide your attention in class or while reading your textbooks. These are the times when your full concentration and focus are important. Take care of your brain. Getting enough sleep, exercise, water and good nutrition are important for optimum brain functioning. What do you think?

You may be involved in a student organization with weekly meetings. You may have to run errands or drop paperwork off to a campus office. Oh yes, and you need to fit in time to eat, sleep, and take care of yourself!

Most important, you will be solely responsible for holding yourself accountable. Therefore, managing your time wisely will be very important for college success. Some great tips for managing your time effectively include:. Getting involved on campus is the best way to get connected to your campus community, make friends, and develop great leadership skills that will be essential post-college. Colleges and universities have dozens of student organizations that represent a broad range of interests.

Whether it be an intramural sport, an interest group, student government, a Greek organization, or your campus activities board — all have so many benefits! Here are a few:. Colleges and universities all come equipped with helpful resources for students to succeed. It is likely that you will learn about a few of these during your orientation program.

These offices come fully staffed with professionals who have a passion for supporting students and helping them to make the most out of their undergraduate experience.

Know this: never again in your life will you find so many different resources in one place. Take advantage of these campus resources that are provided for your benefit.

Final Pro Tip: During your admissions visits, find out if there is a college success course you can take in your first year. When you sit down at your regular study place, your brain knows why you are there. Be honest with yourself about what distracts you: For example, some people actually do study well with music: it may relax them, or drown out other distractions. But, for other people, it may be a distraction in itself. Have the necessary materials: When you find a good place to study, make sure you have the materials you need.

Pens, pencils, papers, notebooks, a clock to keep track of the time , a calculator, erasers, white-out, pencil-sharpeners, rulers—all of these are examples of things you may need. When you study, give the subject your full attention: Often, more can be accomplished in one hour of studying with complete attention than with a few hours of studying with distractions.

At least, you should take short breaks from time to time, in order to not to tire your brain out too much. Study difficult or boring subjects first: If you have to study more than one subject in one session, study the difficult or boring subjects first, so that when you get tired, you can go on to something which is easier or more interesting. If you do it the other way around, you may find yourself unable to face the more difficult subjects later in the study session when you are more tired.

Think of it this way: it is often easier to go uphill first and then go downhill than it is to go downhill first and then go uphill. When reading an assignment, first read the material quickly to get a general idea of the scope of the assignment. Then, read it over again for detail: This will enhance your understanding, and may actually be more time-efficient than trying to get all the details the first time. For example, they may require a certain style of bibliography for papers.

Some instructors are strict about the length of assignments; others are not. Knowing these things will help you get the best possible grades. Give yourself plenty of time; do not procrastinate: Assignments will often take longer than you anticipate. Do things in stages: Often, the best results can be achieved by working on an assignment in stages.

When you go back to the same assignment repeatedly, you will be able to look at the quality of your work in a more objective way, and this will help you keep your standards high. If you get frustrated, take a break and go back to it later: When you become frustrated, the quality of your work will usually diminish, and you will not use time efficiently, either.

Taking a break may well be more time-efficient than forcing yourself to continue working on an assignment that you are stuck on. Of course, you will be able to do this only if you give yourself plenty of time to complete the assignment. Avoid plagiarism at all costs: Plagiarism is a particular problem when doing papers because now papers on most subjects can be easily downloaded and bought on the Internet. Doing this not only deprives yourself of the valuable learning experience of writing a paper, but it also puts you in grave danger of being caught.

Be aware that software exists that allows an instructor to easily find whether a paper is available online, simply by typing in a few sentences from that paper, in other words, while downloading a paper on the Internet is very easy, catching a student who does so can be even easier. The consequences of being caught committing any kind of plagiarism generally range from failing the entire course to expulsion from the institution. If you generally write in a certain style and produce average work, then the instructor will most likely notice it if you suddenly turn in a flawless paper written in a very different style from that you usually use.

Plagiarism is wrong, it cheats yourself out of your own learning experience, and it endangers your academic career. Keep a good attitude towards your instructors: Of course, you will find that you like some instructors more than others.

However, unless you feel that the teacher is genuinely incompetent or negligent, you should try to keep a good attitude towards him or her. At any rate, keeping a positive attitude towards your instructors will help you maximize your learning. Take advantage of all campus learning resources: Luna has a free tutoring center and learning resource center.

Instructors are required to keep office hours in which they can help their students. The Destinations program is available for students who wish to improve their ability in certain subjects. Still, the college experience is not solely an academic one, and becoming involved in activities can both give you a more well-rounded education and make the whole experience more enjoyable.

The enjoyment that they give you can also make you a more enthusiastic, committed student, which will probably help you excel in your studies as well. At the very least, activities will help you get to know other students, who can, in turn, give you academic and social support.

Luna has an active and expanding student government, so that is one way that you can become more involved in college life. There is no mystery about managing time. Everyone has 24 hours each day and hours each week to eat, sleep, work, relax, exercise, attend class, and study. There is nothing magical about getting the most from these hours; it just takes planning.

For example, if a class meets three hours a week, plan to spend six hours studying that subject each week. If a student has 12 hours of class each week, he or she should spend at least 24 hours studying per week.

All in all, going to college can take up as much or more time as a full-time job. Actually, if you find that a class is quite easy for you, you may find that you can get away with studying only one hour per hour spent in class, but, conversely, if you find that the class is difficult, you may need to spend more than two hours per hour spent in class. In the first few sessions of your class, you can also ask the teacher about how much time he or she thinks will be needed for out-of-class study.

Stay at least one day ahead: Unlike high-schools teachers, most college instructors will provide you with a syllabus telling you what your readings and assignments are going to be in advance. This gives you the opportunity to always stay at least one day ahead of your schoolwork. This not only helps manage time, but it also makes it much easier to understand and gain from lectures, because you will have more familiarity with the subjects being discussed before you go into the classroom.

Also, you will have experiences in which assignments turn out to take more time than you expected, so if you are already ahead, you will be prepared when this happens. The problem is that if you get behind in a certain class, you may find yourself having too much to do, and in trying to get caught up in one class, you may actually get behind in other classes as a result.

To avoid getting caught in this kind of negative cycle, do your best to avoid getting behind, and if you do get behind, do your best to set aside some time to get caught up or better yet ahead. Plan ahead for major papers and exams: Some parts of the semester will take more time than others. Especially, major exams and papers will take more of your time than you usually have to spend.