Lecture Notes: A Professor's Inside Guide to College Success - Softcover

Freeman, Philip Mitchell

 
9781580087544: Lecture Notes: A Professor's Inside Guide to College Success
Softcover
ISBN 10: 158008754X ISBN 13: 9781580087544
Verlag: Ten Speed Press, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

If you’re an incoming freshman facing the culture shock of campus life, reeling under the weight of scholastic expectations, and feeling the pressure of overwhelming financial commitments—don’t panic! Lectures Notes counters the confusion with an insider’s perspective on navigating these challenges and many more. Professor Philip Freeman reveals the three sure-fire rules for a great college experience, offers solid strategies for fostering crucial relationships with faculty advisors, and sets you up for four years of success—and beyond. Packed with practical advice, Lectures Notes is a must read for every college-bound high school senior, whether you’re attending a small-town junior college, a sprawling mega-campus, or an ivy-league university. Don’t leave home without it!

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

PHILIP FREEMAN holds a doctorate from Harvard University and is currently the chair of classical languages at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. The recipient of numerous teaching awards and honors, he has been a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., and the Harvard Divinity School. Professor Freeman’s previous books include Julius Caesar, The Philosopher and the Druids, and St. Patrick of Ireland.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1: THE THREE RULES FOR COLLEGE SUCCESS 
 
College is hard, but the rules for college success are simple. The trick is, even though the rules are simple in theory, they are often very difficult in practice. But, here’s my official college professor’s guarantee: If you consistently and conscientiously follow these rules throughout your college years, you will ace your courses, impress your friends and family, and have prospective employers or graduate schools begging you to walk through their doors.
 
 
FIRST RULE: GO TO CLASS 
 
Ever since your first day of kindergarten, when your mom tearfully sent you off to school with a kiss and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, everyone has been telling you that you have to go to school. For thirteen long years you did just that, even when you felt tired, bored, vaguely ill, or whatever excuse you could come up with that day. But guess what? Now that you’re in college, no one will make you go to class. You can lie in bed every day until dinner and—although you will probably convince your roommate you have the motivation of a houseplant—no one will really care. The college president will not call your parents nor will most professors bother to track you down.
 
But your professors will notice. Even in large lecture courses, your absence will become evident by your poor test scores if not by your empty seat. In smaller courses and seminars, skipping classes is like wearing a flashing red sign on your head that says: Please give me a bad grade.
 
Nothing in college is more important than showing up for your classes. And I don’t mean just at the beginning of the semester when you’re still excited about learning a new subject. I mean at the end of four months when your brain is dead and your body cries out for precious sleep.
 
I could state the obvious, that if you are not present in class you will miss important material that will help you on tests and maybe even improve your life in some unpredictable way, but you already know that. I could also say that an average hour of class time in college costs you more than tickets to a Broadway play or major league baseball game. Instead, I will simply warn that repeatedly missing classes is one of the surest ways possible to alienate your professors. Most college teachers do indeed fit the image of a kind-hearted figure in tweed who will go out of their way to give a student a helping hand. But blow off their classes and they will have their revenge. No one wants to be ignored. Professors like to think that the students in our classes are actually anxious to hear our words of wisdom. We like to imagine you would cheerfully drag yourself through a raging blizzard just to write down our brilliant thoughts on the Punic Wars or microeconomic theory. So go to class every day, even when you don’t want to.
 
 
SECOND RULE: READ THE BOOKS 
 
Have you checked out the price of college textbooks? The required books for a single course often cost over a hundred dollars, usually more in classes such as chemistry or literature. Yet, many students let their books collect dust until the night before the big exam, then frantically skim five hundred pages of material. They’d be better off putting their books under their pillows and hoping some of the information would magically seep into their brains. At least then they would get a good night’s sleep.
 
Later, I’ll let you in on some proven study techniques that will help you manage the enormous amount of material your professors will assign you. The point now is just that you can’t do well in college without reading the books. And I don’t mean just perusing a book like you would a magazine article, but really working through material in an organized and productive way. Whether you’re doing calculus or Chinese poetry, you have to put your heart into it.
 
Professors will actually expect you to have read the assigned material for a course. It could be that you’ll work through two hundred pages of deadly dull material and none of it will be on the exam. Or that last-minute, single-page handout that you stuffed in your backpack may be the focus of the whole test. You never really know. Sometimes professors will delight in adding something to an exam from an obscure passage just to make sure you did the readings. Once, when I was teaching a class on English vocabulary, I included the word ponophobia on the final test for students to define. It had not been mentioned in class nor was it prominent in the book. But it showed me who had done the readings carefully. It means, by the way, “fear of hard work.”
 
 
THIRD RULE: TALK TO YOUR PROFESSORS 
 
During my first semester of college, I was terrified of my professors. There I was, a freshman just out of high school taking classes from people with a PhD after their names. I thought my job was to quietly take notes and do as well as I could on tests. I would never have dreamed of opening my mouth in class or visiting my professors in their offices to ask a question. Then, one day I was having serious trouble understanding a key concept in my philosophy class, so I worked up the courage to actually approach my professor to ask for help. It turns out he wasn’t nearly as scary as I had thought.
 
If you are going to succeed in college, you must talk to your professors. This might be to ask a question about a lecture point, to get some help on a paper, or just to confess you are hopelessly lost in the course. Professors are there to help you, but the only way we can do that is if we know you have a problem. Not every problem can be easily fixed, but I guarantee it won’t get fixed at all unless you sit down and work it out with your professor.
 
But, learning to talk with your professors is about much more than just sorting out difficulties. Getting to know your teachers in college can benefit you in many ways, though it isn’t always easy.
 
Most professors are shy people. We never sat at the “cool” table in the junior high cafeteria and were not elected homecoming queen or king. We missed all the good parties in college because we had term papers we wanted to finish first. We spent countless hours of graduate school buried in the bowels of some gigantic research library checking footnotes and writing dissertations no one would ever read. And then, all of a sudden, we found ourselves lecturing in front of two hundred energetic college students. It’s a frightening situation for anyone.
 
Almost all professors genuinely like working with and getting to know students—it’s just that sometimes we don’t know how. Therefore, it will be your job as a student to break down the barriers and get to know your professors. Why should you bother to do this? Two reasons: (1) professors are often fascinating people who will greatly enhance your college experience if you get to know them outside the classroom, and (2) it will improve your grades and future prospects.
 
Most college professors may be shy, but they’ve also read more, done more, and been more places than just about any other group you’ll ever meet. They’ve collected fungi samples in Peru, hiked the Great Wall of China, and know all the best coffee houses near the British Museum. They’ve read Dante and Emily Dickinson and wouldn’t dream of missing the weekly New York Times Book Review. Even if they haven’t done all that, they have a lot to offer if you get to know them.
 
Getting to know college professors can also make a difference on your final grade in a course. This...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Ten Speed Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
158008754X
ISBN 13 
9781580087544
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
160
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
49078
Deutschland