Doing well in college, demystified
There’s no shortage of books to guide you through the college admissions process. Authors have scrutinized and explained every nuance of getting into college -- from what to be aware of on college visits, to writing standout essays and putting together a strong application. Chances are, practically any question you could come up with about college admissions is answered in one of the dozens of books covering the process.
But what about once you actually get to campus? Most students have as many questions when they arrive at college as they did about how to get in.
Jon B. Gould, a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at the Washington College of Law at American University, realized that student-geared books on how to succeed academically in college were surprisingly rare, and wanted to do something about it. His idea was to create a guidebook explaining some basic steps to academic achievement at an undergraduate level.
Gould’s book, How to Succeed in College (While Really Trying): A Professor’s Inside Advice, offers students straightforward advice on everything from course registration through final exams.
In How to Succeed… Gould underlines that even students who performed well in high school may struggle to adapt to the looser structure and increased independence of college.
“We as faculty tend to just assume that students are going to know what’s expected in college -- after all, to get into most schools you’ve been successful as a student already in high school,” said Gould. “But my experience with students is that they find college to be a very different animal from high school. So I thought a book to help demystify college would be useful.”
After teaching for almost 20 years at a variety of institutions, Gould recognizes the habits of top students and common pitfalls of others.
Some of the most significant lessons in the book seem like they should be obvious to students, like the importance of staying on top of reading. But Gould knows that with the distractions of college life, it’s not so cut and dry for students.
“There are all kinds of things that would keep you from wanting to study and that happens to everybody,” he said. “I would say that some things are not just readily apparent about how to write a good college paper, how to cite things or how to do readings in a way that’s interactive.”
Gould, like many professors, has had plenty of students over the years show up to his office complaining bitterly about a bad final grade, after shirking work for an entire semester.
How to Succeed… offers advice on how to avoid being one of those students. Want to stay up to date with reading for class? Figure out approximately how fast you read a page and, based on the length of the assigned reading, calculate how long it will take you to complete it. Then allot yourself enough time to read everything while taking notes. And if you need a primer on how to take effective notes, How to Succeed… walks you through a thorough example.
Above all, Gould highlights the importance of being a proactive and engaged student -- from showing up and speaking up in class to taking high quality notes and attending office hours. This new guidebook to academic success in college drives home the point that students who put in enough effort won’t just do better academically -- they’ll make the most of their investment in college.
Annie Massa is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here. Follow her on Twitter at @annietweetsetc
This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.