Essential educational tips

1. Among other techniques, staying on top of your class requires daily studying, taking careful notes in class, preparing for exams, learning from your mistakes, completing assignment early versus waiting until the last minute, seeking help when needed, and knowing your strengths and weaknesses.

2. Are you thinking about quitting from an enrolled class? Don't just stop going to the class. Stopping to go to the class is NOT the official way for you to receive any refund or avoid receiving a failing grade. Instead, follow the instructions of your school how to withdraw from the class. If you officially withdraw early enough, that class may not even appear on your permanent academic records. So drop the class within the official add-drop period.

3. Before start taking any test, read and know the directions! Know what each question or problem is expecting for an answer before you begin answering.

4. Before taking college entrance exams, remember to prepare for that particular test. Study relevant material. Know the directions of each test section or question type. Consult a study guide for tips and practice tests. By taking practice tests, you will know what mistakes you will make and how to avoid them on the actual test. Show your readiness for college by doing better on the exam.

5. Beside student loans, there are other options for students to pay for college. Many schools offer financial aid, scholarships, and work-study programs to cover some or most of the college costs. If this is not enough (and usually is not), considering a part-time or full-time job on or off-campus is also the norm.

6. Class attendance is an important factor to your academic success. In college, instructors rarely take attendance. This, however, does not mean you can skip classes. Failing to attend class will likely require extra time to catch-up with the pace of the class. Don't rely solely on notes from someone else if you skip a class. Regularly attend classes to get most of your academic experience.

7. Consider visiting the college(s) you are interested in applying. At the very minimum, research online about the schools under consideration. The idea is to learn whether the school offers what is important to you including considerations such as: the degree or program you wish to pursue, finical aid, social life, distance from your home, and so on. By visiting the school and researching on the school, you will have better idea of whether it is a match or not for you ambitions.

8. Do set daily and weekly achieve academic goals. Properly managing your time is essential to your academic success. Know in advance what assignments require more time than others. Study-time for a quiz may be shorter than a mid-term exam, for instance.

9. Don't forget to network while in college! Make connections with friends, classmates, professors, student organizations. Why? They have the potential to help you provide you valuable information for your quest of a future job.

10. Don't get behind. If you get behind on your school assignments, it will be difficult to catch up. Finish your work on time. Make it your habit to meet the deadlines. When you go into the real world as a worker, you will be expected to finish your work and meet the project deadlines. You will ready for that challenge and other challenges in life if you finish your work as it is assigned.

11. Don't through away your graded assignments. Keep them at least until you receive your grade at the end the semester. Also, consider keeping them for aiding you in future assignments or beyond college years. Don't, however, rely exclusively on old assignments you burrow from others because there is no guarantee you will get the same assignment.

12. For math tests, make sure you know if you can use a calculator. If it is allowed, bring a calculator with you to the class. Remember to practice using the calculator and solving the problems before you come to take the exam. Make sure the calculator has fresh batteries and in working condition.

13. For your written assignments, make them clear as possible. When the instructor will grade your assignment, you won't be available to him or her to read what you have written. What he or she will see is what you have written. Keep the language and words appropriate to the subject and requirements of the grader.

14. How do you make your assignments easier for yourself? By knowing or practicing more about the subject. If it is a math class, try solving problems and perhaps more of them than required. If you are asked to do odd-numbered problems, try even-numbered problems as well, for instance. This will help you do better on the exam. The more you know and more you work with the class material, easier it will become to complete exams, projects, presentations, and other assignments.

15. If needed, improve your writing, reading, or math by enrolling in refresher courses. Refresher courses are designed to bring you upto freshman-level standing. If you successfully complete those courses, skilled gathered from those courses will help you in college and beyond. Note neither refresher courses count toward a degree program nor they transfer to other instructions.

16. If you are planning to transfer your credits to a transfer school, remember the courses you take are transferable. Otherwise, this could mean you may also need to spend more time and money to complete what is required by the new school.

17. If you have a fill-in-the-blank question, try guessing what fills the blank before reading the possible choices. If you know the test material, the right choice should come to your mind before you see the possible choices. Then, it is just matter of finding your answer in the possible choices. If you are not sure of the best answer, try substituting each choice in the blank and decide what make the most sense.

18. If you have no idea how to answer an exam question, it is probably best to keep it for later. But remember to mark any questions you omit so you know what questions you need to go back and answer.

19. If you have to answer questions on a particular reading, it is helpful to read the questions first. By having read the questions, you will have a better idea of what to look for in the reading.

20. If you want a flexible learning option, consider taking an online class. With online learning, you hardly have to leave your office or home while the class could be offered by a school hundreds of miles away from you. Not all classes require attendance at a specific time so there is the flexibility of attending the class whenever you have time. But keep in mind online learning is not meant for everyone because it works best for those who are eager to learn independently (outside of the class).

21. Is library your friend? It should be. Learn to do your research in your school library. Chances are you will find more accurate and complete information in the library than what you will find on the internet. This does not mean you should not use internet but just don't forget to use the physical library as well.

22. Keep your academic work load to a manageable size. If you know some classes (or courses) require intensive-reading, avoid taking all of those classes in one semester. Similarly, if you are not good in math, don't overburden yourself with many math classes in one semester. On the other hand, a semester full of all easy classes may not challenge you enough. So consider making your class load to consist of those classes that you consider easy (or very easy), those that you consider difficult (or very difficult), or in between.

23. Major. This is the word you will encounter many times in your college years. If you don't have a major, you will be asked to declare it sooner or later in college. If you need help in choosing a major, ask your academic advisor. Think about what interests you and what kind of job you are planning to work on. Understand a major does not necessarily dictate your future job or career path. This does not however mean you should not have a major. Having decided on your major will help you focus on how to excel in that particular program.

24. Make it your habit to actively participate in class. Doing so will encourage you to complete your assignments which in turn will improve your grades. Your participation helps you build your credibility in the class. If you choose not to speak, your instructor and other students will never know what you think. I always participated in all of the classes I took this is why my teachers in high school and instructors in college always knew my name (most likely) before they learned the names of other students.

25. Make your writing logical and organized. Use headings and subheadings to categorize your paper. Use bold face or italic when defining terms. Remember to label any pictures or graphics/figures you use in your writing.

26. Reading. Chances are you will be doing this a lot in college for almost all classes. So it makes sense to have effective reading skills. Use these techniques as a aid: read in a comfortable and quite environment, choose a place to read where you will be able to fully concentrate on your reading, take notes as you read, highlight important points as you read, write outside of the book if you are afraid of loosing resale value of the book, and use breaks between readings.

27. Remember to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as soon as possible after January 1 of each year you are considering to go to school. Your application will help determine your eligibility for US federal aid for your studies.

28. Responsibility is the key to learning. Not only your teacher or instructor takes the responsibility to teach (or instruct) his/her students but the whole academic process is committed to your learning. Take a book as an example. Think about all the work that was put into creating that book. The author(s) took the responsibility of researching, writing, and meeting deadlines to get that book to the printing press. As a student, should not you take the opportunity to learn?

29. Start early on your class work. Realize when you start and stop is in your control. I recall a quote from my Calculus I instructor's syllabus: Study now, enjoy later. Or, enjoy now, suffer later. I think it is very true. So start early.

30. The next time you take a multiple-choice test, remember to guess correctly if you don't know the answer. With random guessing, you are likely to pick an answer that is incorrect. A wiser approach is to make an educated guess. With this approach you start by eliminating answer choices that you know are wrong (or not part of the answer). The remaining choices contain the answer to the question. So picking an answer from these choices gives you a better chance of the right answer.

31. There are probably thousands of colleges and universities in the United States. But which one will you attend? Know what is important to you when choosing a college. The college location, cost, financial aid, size, type of school (college versus a university), and the specific academic program offering for your studies are some of the options that can help you figure out the best suited college for you. In terms of school size, a small college is likely to offer more personalized experience than a large school, for instance. By establishing your own college search criteria, you can eliminate many schools choices.

32. Try answering easy questions first on your tests. You don't want to spend all of your exam time on hard questions and not get any credit for easy questions. If your exam gives you the same points regardless of the difficulty of the test (as is often the case in multiple-choice tests), why miss earning points on easy questions.

33. Use priorities to complete your work. By setting up priorities for assignments needing completion, you will be able to devote your time in more managed fashion to competing academic demands. When there are other urgent demands, it is often difficult to find flexibility. So don't forget to adhere to the priorities otherwise you will be choosing what to complete and what to neglect.

34. When choosing a class, don't just look at the course title and description. Know who is teaching that class. Talk to your friends or meet the professor personally to find out what to expect in the class. You can even email the professor for a syllabus! Do this early while the school is session because professors don't check their emails often, particularly in extended-breaks. Consider enrolling into a class with the best teacher.

35. When considering applying for a college, make sure to get your application in order early. Don't put it off until the last minute. The school's application will require you to get transcripts and other documents in by a certain deadline. Factor the time needed for gathering these documents in your application process.

36. When making a decision on choosing a college, don't ignore the school location. Is the college situated convenient to major transportation or walking distance? Do you enjoy outdoors? Do you want to spend your college years in a city or do you prefer open space? How about the climate? If you love skiing, your preferred choice may not be to select a college under year-round sun-shine. Thinking of how you have grown up may help you decide choosing the college location.

37. When taking exams, it is important to keep track of time. If you finish your exam early, remember to check your answers.