For most of you I am sending out a glorious “welcome back.” For others, it’s more of a “welcome to your first semester.”
Either way, welcome to the frigid, cold winter months of spring semester here at Sinclair.
This is the Clarion’s first spring semester edition, and I am here to start off the semester with some knowledge. Since I am here to assist you with all the things you didn’t know you needed to know, I will be teaching the ways of the force.
Hah, I’m kidding. I’m going to let you in on how to survive college.
There are about four variations on how your semester could go. These four scenarios involving slacking off, keeping strong or some combination of the two.
The most obvious strategy, and the one your instructors want you to stick with, is starting the semester out strong and staying strong all 16 weeks.
Do people not hear how ridiculous that sounds? That’s a lot of Starbucks and not enough sleep. No one is going to do that; everyone slacks off at some point. We’ll just go ahead and skip this strategy.
Your second option is to start off strong so you can slack off near the end of the semester. This involves putting in your best effort at the beginning by taking a ton of notes, highlighting everything and studying for exams.
By the end of the semester, you should have padded your grade enough to not care anymore. No more note-taking and highlighting, and you just kind of glance over the study guides for tests.
The third scenario is the reverse of that. You could slack off during the first part of the semester but try to finish out strong, like you suddenly started to care.
This one is a bit of a challenge because if you slack off too much in the beginning your grade will be too low to even have a chance of being brought back up.
If this works for you, please write in and let me know your ways.
The last scenario for how your semester could go is potentially the most risqué – slacking off the whole time. With this strategy, you’re pretty much just hoping you get lucky throughout the semester.
You don’t really study, but you might look over some notes. You do the homework and assignments, but you don’t actually believe in reading the book. You do well on exams and quizzes, but you pretty much just guess on the questions you don’t know. (You refuse to second-guess and change answers, too.)
This strategy works for some but not others. If you’re naturally “gifted” or “smart,” then it probably works for you. If you find yourself struggling with grades, then I would suggest to give this up and try a different strategy.
There are also places to turn to for help if you are struggling.
Get a tutor or create a study group with classmates. Sometimes you just need someone who understands you and your brain to explain things in a different way.
For example, I related a biology topic (protein inhibitors) to a friend’s relationship in order for her to understand it better. We all work in different ways, my friends.
You could even go to your instructor for more insight into a class discussion.
Speaking of instructors, I definitely advise checking out their reviews on Rate My Professor. You don’t want to end up with an instructor that speaks in sarcasm when you are a sensitive soul.
One more thing. Get your textbooks for cheap. Just because they sell them at the bookstore doesn’t mean you have to buy them there.
We are all broke college students and can’t afford it. There are other resources for getting books. Talk to your friends to see if you can borrow a book or buy it on the low-low. Rent textbooks from sites like Amazon. Also, the library has copies of most textbooks to use.
It doesn’t matter where you get them because you probably won’t end up reading them.
Overall, college can be some of the best (or worst) years of your life if you can learn how to survive it.
Brittany Fletcher
Designer