The Secrets of College Success E-Book

Lynn F. Jacobs

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: Professors' Guide
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 431

Beschreibung

Heading off to college? Or perhaps already there? This book's justfor you. Winner of the 2010 USA Book News Award for bestbook in the college category, The Secrets of College Successcombines easy-to-follow tips that really work with insiderinformation that few professors are willing to reveal. The over 800 tips in this book will show you how to: * Pick courses and choose a major * Manage your time and develop college-level study skills * Get on top of the core requirements * Get good grades and avoid stress * Interact effectively with the professor * Match college and career, and more. New to this second edition are tips for: * Online courses and MOOCs * Community Colleges, Engineering Schools, and Arts and DesignColleges * E-readers, tablets, and laptops * Taking out Student Loans and Paying them Off, and more. Ideal for college students at any stage, and college-bound highschool students, The Secrets of College Success makes awonderful back-to-college or high-school-graduation gift - ora smart investment in your own future.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise for the First Edition of The Secrets of College Success

Title page

Copyright page

Meet the Professors

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction

Top 10 Reasons to Read This Book

The Professors’ Guide™ Icons

1: This Is College

10 Things You Need to Know About College (But Probably Don’t)

What’s New at College? Fun Facts

The 15 Habits of Top College Students

The 10 Worst Self-Defeating Myths

The 11 Secrets of Getting Good Grades in College

20 No-Brainers to Save Money at College

14 Ways to Ensure You Graduate in Four Years

Top 10 Tips for Community College Students

10 Best Tips for Engineering School

Top 10 Tips for Applied Arts and Design Colleges

The College Student’s Bill of Rights

2: In the Beginning . . .

7 Things to Do the Summer Before College

15 Things to Do the Week Before College

10 Things to Consider Before Buying a Tablet, E-Reader, or Laptop for College

Do’s and Don’ts for Picking Your Courses

Top 12 Tips for Picking a Major

Top 10 Secrets of the Syllabus

10 Questions to Ask Yourself the First Week of Classes

The 13 Warning Signs of a Bad Professor

Tips and Tricks for Improving Your Course Schedule

3: Skills 3.0

Top 10 Time-Management Tips

Top 10 Reasons Never to Procrastinate

The How Not to Study Guide

10 Secrets of Taking Excellent Lecture Notes

15 Ways to Read Like a Pro

15 Strategies for Painless Presentations

How to Build Your Confidence

4: Specialties of the House

10 Ways to Whip the Freshman Comp Requirement

10 Tips for Taming the Math Requirement

Top 10 Tips for Mastering the Foreign (or World) Language Requirement

10 Ideas for Learning to Love the Lab

10 Tips for the First-Year Experience Course

Facing Up to Remediation: Top 10 Strategies

10 Tips for Online Courses (and MOOCs)

How to Take Courses on the Web—for Free

5: It’s Showtime!

12 Tips for A+ Test Preparation

“So What’s Going to Be on the Test Anyway?”

Top 13 Test-Taking Tips

10 Tips for Writing the Perfect Paper

10 Things Your Professor Won’t Tell You About Grading

How to Turn a B into an A

14 Techniques for Doing Research Like a Professor

Top 10 Tips for Doing E-Research

6: Interfacing with the Professor

15 Ways to Make Your Professor Love You

10 Biggest Hesitations About Going to See the Professor—and How to Get Over Them

The 14 Secrets of Going to See the Professor

Etiquette for E-mailing Your Professor

10 Surefire Ways to Piss Off Your Professor

Top 10 Things Professors Never Want to Hear—and What They Think When They Do Hear Them

7: In Case of Emergency . . .

10 Things to Do When You Can’t Keep Up with the Lecture

Top 10 Signs You’ve Been Cutting Too Many Classes

What to Do When You’ve Bombed the Midterm

7 Best Last-Minute Strategies for Saving Your Grade

10 Signs You’re in Real Trouble at College

What, Then, to Do? The 7-Step Approach

8: The Second Half

10 Must-Do’s at the Halfway Point of College

13 Skills You’ll Need for a Career—and How to Get Them at College

10 Strategies for Women Considering a Career in STEM Fields

Transfer Tips—from Community College to Four-Year College

Summer School Pros and Cons

Top 10 Myths About Study Abroad

Top 9 Tips for Taking Out Student Loans

10 Tips for the Senior Thesis

9: Moving On

The 10-Step Program for Thinking About Grad School

Top 10 Tips for Getting Bang-Up Recommendations

8 Tips for Finding a Job

Top 13 Tips for Acing the Job Interview

Top 10 Tips for Paying Off Your Student Loans

10: The End—And the Beginning

Top 10 People We’d Like to Thank

Web Resources

Index

Praise for the First Edition of The Secrets of College Success

“If I had my way, I’d give this book to every single college student, of any age, and make them read it. A book that moves from ‘How to Turn a B into an A’ to ‘10 Surefire Ways to Piss Off Your Professor’ is beyond just ‘helpful.’ It is ‘the Missing Manual’ for turning a merely ‘okay’ college experience into a delicious adventure. I laughed, I took notes, I loved every page. And I’m not even in college. If you are, don’t even think about not buying this book. It will be the best thing you ever did for yourself.”

—Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?

“Along with shower flip-flops and a very loud alarm clock, this book should be on every freshman’s college packing list. The professors have outlined solutions for all the major fears that students face when they start college.”

—Marjorie Savage, parent program director, University of Minnesota and author of You’re on Your Own (But I’m Here If You Need Me): Mentoring Your Child During the College Years

“Psychologically sound tips for thriving, not just surviving, in college. Lynn’s and Jeremy’s tips will make your college experience a spectacular success.”

—Chuck Snowden, director of honors program, University of Wisconsin

“Clear, practical, comprehensive—and caring. These authors want you to succeed. Listen.”

—Judy Genshaft, president, University of South Florida, and past president, American Council on Education

“Riddled with humor and witty in presentation, this lighthearted ‘easy read’ could be the most helpful, honest resource for today’s college student.”

—Scott H. Reikofski, director, fraternity/sorority affairs, University of Pennsylvania

“The Secrets of College Success needs to be required reading for anyone starting college, regardless of age. A great source of practical advice that could mean the difference between success and failure.”

—Eduardo J. Padrón, president, Miami Dade College

“The students who are most successful in college are those who are most prepared. The Secrets of College Success reveals what students need to know from the perspective of the professors who teach them. It pays to know the rules of the game before you play.”

—George R. Boggs, president and CEO, American Association of Community Colleges

“This volume provides a banquet of tips. Easy to read, easy to locate what you need, this book will be helpful throughout your undergraduate years. I highly recommend it.”

—Sharon J. Hamilton, professor and former director, Indiana University Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching

“Accessibly written and logically organized; there’s something here for everyone. This handy volume will help students focus on what it takes to be successful.”

—Peter H. Quimby, deputy dean, Princeton University

“This book provides sound advice in a great format on how to get the most from your college education, starting on Day 1 of your freshman year.”

—Martha O’Connell, executive director, Colleges That Change Lives

“High schools focus on getting their seniors TO college but they rarely teach them how to get THROUGH college. Professors Jacobs and Hyman fill this gap with a series of high-energy, digestible, and practical tips that any student can master in one sitting. This book should be required reading for every college-bound student so that they will be equipped with the ‘under-the-hood’ expertise they need to succeed in higher education.”

—Keith W. Frome, chief academic officer, College Summit Inc.

“The Secrets of College Success is an easy-to-read, highly informative book. In my experience, many students come in to Stanford unprepared for the realities of college life. With bite-sized and digestible tips, this book provides substantial advice applicable to any college student.”

—Kamil Dada, president and editor in chief, the Stanford Daily, Stanford University

Cover design by JPuda and Tom Hapgood

Cover image: © skodonnell/istockphoto

Copyright © 2013 by Professors’ Guide, LLC. All rights reserved. Professors’ Guide name, the male and female professors icons, and the trade dress are trademarks of Professors’ Guide, LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file with the Library of Congress

9781118575123 (paper), 9781118575130 (ebk.), 9781118575154 (ebk.), 9781118618035 (ebk.)

Meet the Professors

Dr. Lynn F. Jacobs is professor of art history at the University of Arkansas. A specialist in Northern Renaissance art, Lynn previously taught at Vanderbilt University, California State University, Northridge, the University of Redlands, and NYU. She has received the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship twice and the University of Arkansas Prize for distinguished academic advising.

Jeremy S. Hyman is founder and chief architect of Professors’ Guide™ content projects. An expert in early modern philosophy, Jeremy teaches at the University of Arkansas, and has previously taught at UCLA, MIT, and Princeton University. He received the University of California Regents’ award for distinguished teaching.

Lynn and Jeremy are coauthors of the book Professors’ Guide to Getting Good Grades in College (HarperCollins, 2006). They write a column at U.S. News & World Report, www.usnews.com/professorsguide, and contribute to Reader’s Digest, the New York Times’ “Choice” blog, Huffington Post, and Fox Business.

Lynn and Jeremy live in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with their son, Jonah. Their website is www.thesecretsofcollegesuccess.com and they tweet at @professorsguide.com.

Preface to the Second Edition

To the student—that is, you.

Much has changed at college since the first edition of this book, just three years ago. Online courses and e-readers, picking majors at the beginning of college, increased emphasis on first-year experience and capstone courses, booming enrollment in community colleges, and mounting worry about how to pay for college and whether, in the end, it’s worth it—all of these are new to the college scene. And we have tips for all of them.

But much hasn’t changed at college. Taking tests and writing papers, managing your time and making deadlines without undue stress, knowing when—and how—to go see the professor, applying to grad school or finding a job—all of these are things that will always be a part of college. And we have tips for them, too.

We offer you a simple promise: if you follow the tips, techniques, and strategies in this book, you will succeed at college. Tens of thousands of students have read the first edition of this book and benefitted from it (we know; we get e-mail from students all over the United States—indeed, from all over the world—every day). And we’ve presented the ideas in this book to thousands of additional students at orientation programs at dozens of colleges (to see clips from our The Secrets of College Success campus presentation, visit www.gimmeana.com).

We’re out to change college in America; to change it from a place in which students sit like sponges in large lecture courses, passively absorbing content dished up by professors, to a place where students know what the professors are really thinking and, using this information, take charge of their own learning—and succeed. Hence, TheSecrets of College Success.

But more than any of that, we’d like you to succeed. That is why, if you come to a tip you don’t understand—or a technique or strategy you’re not sure how to use—we want you to ask us about it. E-mail either of us at [email protected] or [email protected]. We’re here to help.

And if you have a tip that’s worked especially well for you, share it with the other twenty million college students in the United States. Tweet it to @professorsguide. Hey, we haven’t cornered the market on tips for college success.

College is a journey—one you’re perhaps thinking of starting on (if you’re a college-bound high school student), just starting on (if you’re entering in the fall), or are already well into (if you’re already at college). Whatever the case, the over eight hundred tips, techniques, and strategies in this book—from things to do the summer before college all the way through to how to get a job and pay off your student loans—will ensure your success on the college journey. We guarantee it—which is why we sign our names below.

Introduction

You might not know this, but you’re going to college at the very best time in the last five hundred years. New media, twenty-first-century technologies, better professors, government funding for college—all of these go together to make this a wonderful time to be at college.

That is—if you know what to do.

You might have thought professors and advisers would tell you all you need to know. You wouldn’t be right. Some professors think part of college is figuring out on your own what’s expected. Others think it’s a waste of class time to go over how to manage your time, study, prepare for tests, or write papers. Still others think that if they tell you what to do, you’ll think it’s a recipe for an A, which, if you don’t get, will result in a colossal grade dispute—something no professor wants.

And, at some colleges, the booming enrollments have simply made it impossible for professors, advisers, and staff to give you the advice and attention you need and deserve—no matter how much they’d like to.

And so we’ve written The Secrets of College Success—the first book to offer quick tips, all written by professors, that’ll help you achieve your full potential at college. Whether you’re a beginning or advanced student; whether you’re at a four-year college, community college, or taking courses on the Web; whether you’re already doing pretty well at college or maybe not as well as you’d like; even if you’re a high school student just beginning to think about college—this book is for you.

The secrets we reveal and the tips that we offer are the product of over thirty years of teaching experience at eight different colleges—big and small, private colleges and state universities, good schools and not-all-that-good schools. Over ten thousand students have tried the tips—and we can tell you they really work.

Most of all, this book is fun to read. You’ll find yourself not only strategizing about college—figuring out how you can apply our tips to your own college experience—but also making up tips of your own and even wanting to share them with others. And you’ll enjoy your success when you find that the tips—both yours and ours—have changed the way you approach college.

Congratulations. This is a wonderful time to be at college. Make the most of it.

Top 10 Reasons to Read This Book

#10. The tips are really good. Written wholly by professors, the tips in this book give you high-value information about what to do at college—and what not to do.

#9. The information is not available elsewhere. No professor, adviser, or college guide will tell you the insider secrets we reveal in this book.

#8. The information is quick. Top 10 Lists, Do’s and Don’ts, To-Do Lists, How-to (and How-not to) Guides—all the advice is bite-sized and easy to digest. And our Professors’ Guide™ icons will help you navigate your way through the book.

#7. The tips are practical. No abstract theories here, just concrete, easy-to-follow tips that you can use to guarantee your success at college.

#6. We tell you everything you need to know—and only the things you need to know. From the summer before college to the crucial first year of college, from picking a major to finding a job—all the key moments of college are covered.

#5. The tips are up-to-date. All the new realities of college are included. And we give you links to useful websites, so you can find out the latest information about special topics.

#4. Each tip stands on its own. You can use as many—or as few—of the tips as you want and still get excellent results. And you can follow the tips in any order. Pick a tip that interests you and then move on to others, or just randomly flip to a page and start reading.

#3. We tell you what to do. Like a good undergraduate adviser (something sorely lacking at many colleges), we tell you not just what you might do, but what you should do. In a friendly and supportive voice, of course.

#2. The tips are time-tested. The advice in this book has worked for thousands and thousands of students. And it will work for you.

And the number-one reason you should read this book:

#1. The tips are fun to read. You’ll enjoy thinking about different strategies for college success as you read through our tips. And, in the best case, you’ll LOL as you read some of our attempts at humor. (At least you won’t be bored.)

The Professors’ Guide™ Icons

Here are the icons used in this book—and what each of them means:

Extra Pointer.

An additional tip that fills out another tip or applies to a special situation.

5-Star Tip.

A really high-value suggestion that you should be sure to use. One of the best tips in the book.

Best-Kept Secret.

One of the things that no one wants you to know, but that will help you do really well at college.

Reality Check.

An invitation to take a step back and assess what’s really going on.

IOHO (In Our Humble Opinion).

We get on our soapbox to bloviate—that is, give our expert opinion—about controversial issues at college. Not all professors will agree.

Rule of Thumb.

A general principle that will work in most, but perhaps not all, situations.

On the Web.

A useful link for getting more information or buying a product or service online.

Bonus Tip.

For those who can’t get enough, one more tip.

Flash!

Late-breaking information worth knowing about.

Except for websites that are very familiar (such as Google, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or eBay), we’ve given the entire web address; for example, www.ocw.mit.edu. Some URLs, for who knows what reason, omit the “www”; these appear as, for example, http://ocw.nd.edu.

1

This Is College

Going to college is a very special sort of experience. A time of tremendous personal growth. A time when some students get their first serious taste of independence, while others find their BFFLs, increase their Facebook friends exponentially, or even meet up with their future spouses. But even more important, college is also a time of great intellectual growth. A chance to study things you didn’t even know existed or to delve into topics you do know about at a level of detail and sophistication that you’ve never before imagined.

Because college is so special, it’s important to make the most of it. To squeeze all the juice out of it and drink it all up. Especially when it comes to the academic side of things, where students often don’t reap all the benefits college has to offer. This chapter will help you understand what college is all about—to get a real picture of what you are about to go through or are already going through. And it will offer basic tips about the things that matter most at college—no matter what kind of college you’re going to.

In this chapter you’ll learn:

10 Things You Need to Know About College (but Probably Don’t)What’s New at College? Fun FactsThe 15 Habits of Top College StudentsThe 10 Worst Self-Defeating MythsThe 11 Secrets of Getting Good Grades in College