If you’re new to college courses the first thing you need to understand is, yes, they are way different than high school courses. Now look, I’m sure you’ve already heard all your high school teachers tell you a million times “just you wait, your college courses will be 10x harder than what you took in high school!.” Well I’m here to tell you that that statement isn’t necessarily true. The actual concepts you learn in college courses truly aren’t that much more difficult to understand than what you have learned your whole life. But what IS different, are the strategies and methods you need to use to pass these courses. The reality is, college courses can be extremely hard if you don’t know how they work, but they can also be very easy if you do.
So here are my top 4 tips on how to pass your college courses with ease:
#1: 90% of it is about what professors you have
Something that makes college courses very different from high school is that professors no longer follow the same requirements as each other. Yes they all have an agenda to follow, but when it comes to the requirements to pass classes, professors quite literally make that up on their own. Two teachers could be teaching the same exact class, but one of them makes it way easier to pass it than the other. That’s why you absolutely must research your professor to see if they are easy going or if they are a hard ass. Use https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ and search up your teacher. The reviews on this website give honest opinions from past students on which teachers they recommend for specific classes. Some teachers will grade you extremely hard and some literally don’t care as long as they see you putting in an effort.
#2: Don’t waste time on classes that don’t need it
Early on in the semester, you’ll learn which of your classes are harder and will require more time than others. Let’s be honest, you’re not going to study every single day for every class if you have a social life in college. Trust me, you’ll try it for a few weeks and eventually you’ll burn out. So don’t waste time studying like crazy for the easy classes and use that time for the hard ones. You’ll probably end up finding that there are some classes you won’t need to study for at all.
#3: Pay close attention to the syllabus
It’s easy to think when you’re entering your first college classes that tests will make up the majority of your grade, but sometimes this isn’t the case. There were several times my freshman year that I grinded so hard studying for a test that I forgot to submit homework assignments for that same class. And yeah, I would do well with my tests, but it turned out that my homework assignments made up the same percentage of my grades that the tests did in that class. If I had just paid attention to the syllabus, I would have known this and done way better.
#4: Get to know your professors
I know it’s a pain in the ass, but go to office hours, talk to them after class, and ask them questions. You’d be surprised how much a professor can boost your grade just because they like or dislike you. College professors love when you participate and just show that you care. Like I said before, college professors pretty much make their own rules for grading in their classes, and they can make participation 90% of your grade if they really want to.