The purpose of this guide is to allow you the student to enjoy as much of the different aspects of college while maintaining a GPA average above 3.0.

Structuring your day: Class Selection

-Before you register for classes, ask any upperclassmen you know, check around on local facebook pages, check out any teacher rating website. The goal is to find out any information about the teachers in advance. The goal isn’t necessarily to find the teacher with the easiest A’s, it’s the teacher that gives a crap about teaching.

-Understand what kind of person you are, try and schedule times around that. There are many different time slots for classes, and the upperclassmen will most likely take the ‘preferred’ slots (later in the morning). Are you a late riser? Maybe then be up extra early on registration and be hawking ready to get that later morning class. Maybe the opposite and you like early mornings, schedule your day to be done by 12pm and you’ve got another 12 hours to utilize before restarting.

-Look at what the rest of the semesters have in store. Usually classes are separated into the first half and second half. Most individual classes in these categories can be taken whenever, as long as it’s before the second half (junior senior years). Perhaps it’s better to let’s say take all of the math courses one semester and all of the physics another, then you can have a semester with all gym classes or electives.

-Take a look at your curriculum. What will your minor be? Are there any classes you can pick up for an easy minor? Example for my engineering major all I needed was 2 courses to pick up a biology minor. I could have taken 2 more to pick up a math minor. Does your degree have a masters program? For example my school had a 4+1 degree where you completed pre-reqs for masters while in undergrad and then the masters was only 1 year. 

Freshmen and Sophomore Years: Inside the classroom

-Your undergraduate years are the most important years in college, the classes you take are in preparation for Junior&Senior years. While the classes in the second half are in general harder, there are also many electives which can definitely cause some senioritis. Focusing on the first two years and achieving a 3.5+ GPA is an achievable goal which if completed; will set up the rest of your academic career beautifully. You’ll never get freebie classes like these to boost your GPA again.

-College is going to be one of the most unique, diverse, complicated social ecosystems you will ever be in. There will be peer pressure, clicks, and judgement everywhere. It’s hard but you should SIT IN THE FRONT OF CLASS, You may have friends in the class and you won’t be able to talk to them. It’s worth it. 

Freshmen and Sophomore Years: Out the classroom

-I dont care what drugs you take, I just care how often you take them. Make sure to leave yourself time on the weekends. Party all friday night? Maybe plan for some recovery time and then a brief re-read of notes? Then you can get ready for round 2 saturday night. Sunday is going to be recovery day and most likely no work will get done. Avoid getting in a cycle where you spend all day Sunday doing absolutely nothing. All you need is 30-45-60 minutes to do some lazy reading over your notes. You will be amazed at how much it helps.

Online Courses: Covid and Beyond

-The dangers of online courses (OCs) are mostly related to personal student motivation. Ocs are easy to cheese despite schools best efforts. Most college computer labs have monitoring software pre-installed. These let professors view students’ screens during lessons to make sure they aren’t dicking around instead of listening. Learning from the comfort of your own dorm/apartment/house makes these monitoring programs a non-issue however a majority of online programs used by schools for distance learning contain activity monitoring software. Examples of this can be facial recognition to make sure there is a face in front of the camera, and action monitoring software that requires clicking on the screen every X amount of minutes. There are simple ways to get around these such as pictures of yoursel

Appendix 1: How to take notes.

Materials Required:

Graph paper, 3 hole punched already. If you need a 3 hole puncher, don’t buy one – go to your school’s library. 

3 hole ring binder

At least 3 different color pens Ideally Blue Black Red

Multiple 3 hole punch folders, as many as the classes you take +1

Method:

Have the graph paper at the front of the binder with the folders following. The folders should be labeled according to the classes you have. The +1 binder is there for any ‘other’ documents.

When taking notes in class use your pen colors to distinguish when the professor says something important like “a problem like this may be on the test”. Take the red pen and draw a big red star or arrow pointing to that note. Does the professor say this will relate or help with something coming next chapter, or maybe something that refers to a previous chapter. Write it in blue ink. The idea is to give yourself some landmarks to associate the information with. Do not be afraid to draw pictures or diagrams to assist your note taking. That is why you have graph paper, to make your drawings as crisp as possible even if you’re a bad artist.

At the end of your day of classes, go back to your room and relax. Take a breather, drink some water, put your phone away, and prepare yourself. Once you have gotten yourself into the zone, open your notebook which will have X many pages of notes. Take a glance over your notes. Reread some of the blue and red parts and maybe clarify if you understand it better? Once you’ve completed that, remove those pages and place them into the appropriate folder. Repeat this for all your notes and then you’re golden. 

Additional actions that can be taken:

Do you have good handwriting? Does your school have a note taker position? Check it out. Most of the time it just requires you taking regular notes and then scanning them into a computer at the end of the day. It’s the same thing you’ll be doing already, now youre making money for it. Some professors have remote sessions that require the setup of filming equipment. If you take that position you’ll be able to access them, and you get paid.

If you are sitting in the front row, have your phone out and record the audio from the classes. Every class might be a little overkill, however the study sessions? Maybe a post-class meeting? Not only will you be there for the study session in person, you will be re-reading your notes later, and you have the audio of the session. That is three different ways you’re absorbing the information. I am telling you, this method will hammer the information into your brain.