Everyone wants a good grade in college. You and I, irrespective of which course we are into, or which universities we are in, we all know the importance of obtaining good grades in college. As someone said, "work like a slave today and live like a king tomorrow", so just keep working hard today to enjoy a comfortable life tomorrow.
Below are some tips and tricks to accomplish your goals, not just in college, but in every difficult situation of life.
We have compiled some tips to get good grades in college from various educational experts and professors in this article, so you don’t have to look at different places. Read it and follow it, also share it with your dear friends who are aiming to get good grades. After all, sharing is caring.
#1. Attend Every Class
Rather than depending on people to tell you what happened in the class, start attending your classes regularly. Notes can only help you with theoretical part, but whatever your teacher is explaining in the class, you won't find it anywhere. Besides, if you have any doubts during the class, you can directly ask your teacher to clear it and get an instant solution.
There are chances of you memorizing the facts that your teacher taught in class more than what you read by yourself. Why does it happen? A theory about brain suggests that getting a piece of an information in the form of audio helps you memorize it for a longer time compared to text information. The same theory is the reason behind the success of Audio-Video medium, as people retain more information if it is shared in an audio-visual medium.
Attending classes helps you to form a student and a mentor relationship with your professors which can be very fruitful later on. But, if you don't attend the college, the chances of forming such bonds would be very low. Do whatever it takes to be in the good books of your professors, as many professors have attendance policies that can directly impact your marks.
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#2. Select The Right Courses
When you're in college, it's very crucial to pick the right subjects that you're comfortable with rather than making the choices depending on what others are choosing.
If you have to obtain good marks in college, it's important for you to select the courses that you feel you can do. I have some friends who took up Political Science for no reason at all, they didn’t even ask themselves what would be their future with Political Science. What happened to them? They left the course after the first semester and took various other courses.
In addition, along with picking the right subjects, it’s also important to select the right levels of the subject. In some colleges, they mark different levels of the same subject using the same name which might be confusing sometimes, thus, consult a designated person for the task before picking up the subject.
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#3. Don't Burden Yourself
Don't burden yourself by taking multiple subjects; it's not going to help you score good marks. Some people take up more than the usual number of subjects, and they start regretting later, for these guys, stop overloading yourself.
If you want to maintain a good GPA, take 4-5 subjects in each semester, not more than that. Also, don't take more than one subject as majors. This will help you gain a better insight and eventually hold a better knowledge in that particular subject, therefore, you can become an expert and score better too.
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#4. Get A Knack Of Your Professor
Each person has different personalities and a different way of teaching things. The same applies to your professors too. Your professor might have a different style of teaching things, and if you want to do good in their subjects, try mastering your professor's way of teaching within the first week. And, if you're facing some problem in their subject, don't hesitate to meet your professor outside the class and ask for help. Understand the course expectations and communicate with your professor if you are struggling with the subject.
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#5. Be A Planner
Some people are born planners, while some keep a planner along with them every time. Whichever is your way, if you’re in college, you have to have a plan if you're planning to graduate with flying colors. College life is tough; you have to be a multi-tasker to be able to meet the deadlines of assignments and college projects.
Before you compel yourself with the overwhelming pressure of college life, start using a planner for everything. There are multiple digital assistants online which are pretty handy and very easy to use. You can also use a regular planner if you don't want to use electronic planners.
The second important rule, don't ever throw your old homework, assignments, or even old notes, they can be very crucial for you in future. I still have my college time notes properly stored in a safe place so as to refer whenever preparing for masters or higher education.
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#6. Time Is Money And Time Is Grades
This quote is very popular among working people, "time is money". A similar version of the same quote applies to you if you're planning for good grades in college. "Time means grades, " and we mean it. Every second, every minute, and every hour are crucial for you, spend it wisely. Even if you feel like, just remind yourself of your current goal and don't procrastinate ever.
Try maintaining an order of doing things, complete the difficult ones first and the easier ones later to be able to complete things on time. Completing difficult tasks earlier will give you a sense of accomplishment, and you can reward yourself with a break, but don't let this sense of accomplishment get over you and make you lazy. Take a quick break and utilize it in doing something that can refresh you: chat with friends, watch a TV show, go out with your friends for a movie.
If some project seems too large, break it into smaller bits and accomplish them one by one. Assign deadlines to each task and don't relax before completing them. A good balance is very crucial in life, especially when you're in college to maintain the peace of mind.
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#7. Don’t Undermine Notes
As mentioned and emphasized the importance of attending classes regularly, here is the second reason to be regular in class. Class notes are like the roadmap that can lead you to success, so don't even undermine their importance. Notes can also help you get a knack of your professor's way of teaching, because these notes are vital clues to what the professor thinks, and it is the most important material that you can ever get to learn.
Now, a mistake that is very common among students, they make notes as if it was their duty. Notes are supposed to help you achieve better grades, and it's not compulsory if you don't like taking notes. You have to understand one thing, notes are for your own betterment, so besides taking notes, learn how to better use them to your own advantage.
Taking a reference from some studies and from our personal experience, we suggest you to re-write notes again and again to get a hold of everything in the related topic. Re-writing things help you grasp the information better, increase your understanding and retention of material.
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#8. Use Textbooks
This might sound weird, but there's a reason why your professors assign you notebooks in class. Textbooks act as an extra supplement for people willing to score good GPA's.
Textbooks have everything that your professors teach you as your professors use the textbook for reference while teaching. Besides, textbooks being written by experts and they contain extra pieces of information related to the subject which can be very helpful for you. Follow your professor when he/she stresses the importance of any particular chapter or section of the chapter, and read it as many times to understand it completely.
Start outlining the things which you feel are critical, underlining things helps you find the important piece of information faster.
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#9. Study With Dedication, Like You Mean It
When we start studying, instead of focusing on what's written in the book, we think of excuses to convince ourselves and run away from studies. Please don't do that. Don't take pick a book and sit on the table staring at it, or turn pages continuously without even taking a look at them. Whenever you plan to study, be it in the daytime or in the midnight, study like you mean it. Make proper use of the time, make up your mind and complete one chapter every day. If you get bored while studying, take regular breaks and get back at it after that.
Break your studies in shorter periods, and read different things one after another. Reading the same subject for too long will induce boredom and you won't be able to focus. Use music if it helps you to focus.
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#10. Join A Community Or A Group
Each one teaches one. The quote is very simple to understand, and if you got why it is being used here, you should be finding out communities for help. There are many communities of students for a particular subject where they help each other in studies. Moreover, there are groups of students, especially in the sciences, who like to test their theoretical knowledge by carrying out experiments. One benefit of being in the group is, your cohorts are either a little weaker than you or smarter than you, and you can always take their help in solving problems. These groups or communities are either held weekly or daily basis, and we suggest you should visit them once in every week to get your doubts cleared.
Being a student, you can improve your grades one level or more by working with other students.
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Even if good grades don’t define your intelligence, but good grades are important if you don’t have any other alternative method to prove your intelligence. When you get out of your college and start appearing for interviews, there is only one thing that will matter to your interviewer and that is your grades. So, it doesn’t matter if you believe that grades are not a measure of your potential, but you have to have good grades if you don’t want to struggle later, for a good job or while trying to enroll yourself in a better university for higher studies.
We hope you liked the article. Let us know your tips and tricks that you’re following or followed during your college time to score good marks. Use the comment section for any suggestion or feedback regarding the article.
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