One of the hardest things that new college students have to realize as fast as possible is that they do not know how to study.  Even those students that had a 4.0 GPA in high school do not truly know how to study for college courses and still have the possibility of flunking out of college.  To help our students get started on a good footing, the Penn State University Learning Center has developed a website, "Foundations for Academic Success: Building the Skills to Learning & Succeeding."  

            There are several things to keep in mind as you prepare for your new college course loads so that you can increase the likelihood of success in college.

• Time Required - A student must do more than just go to class to do well.  College classes are not like high school classes.  In high school the teachers basically will tell you everything you need to know and typically not expect you to push the limits too far on your own outside of reading the textbooks to reenforce what you were told in class.  They will even give you enough time during school hours to complete "out-of-classroom-work" or "homework" so that you will not have to do a lot at home.  College professors will expect a student to do at least 2-3 hours of study outside of the classroom for every 1 hour in class.  These 2-3 hours will be necessary to continuousely reenforce the course material since the topics will typically only be covered in class once.  The following topics are meant to help you on your way to develope the study skills you will need to succeed in college.

• Learning Styles - In elementary and secondary schools, teachers teach the many different types of learning preferences that exist (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, spatial, active, reflective, sequential, verbal, global learning) and their lesson plans allow those diverse types of learners to contribute in the classroom and in homework assignments.  In a college/university setting, the instructor will typically teach in the style that he or she is most comfortable and will expect (assume) that the student will learn and re-learn the material in the learning preference style with which that the student is most comfortable.  However, a student may not know what his or her preference is. So, it benefits the student to determine that preference as soon as possible.  Some web sites that can help one in using the most suitable techniques best for that student are:  http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html (Solomon/Felder's Index of Learning Style Questionnaire, Gives you instant feedback: explanations of your scores and the implications of your preferences.) or, http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp (Visual, Auditory, Reading and Kinesthetic Learning Preference) or, http://pss.uvm.edu/pss162/learning_styles.html (Multiple Intelligences Information)      
  

• Note Taking - Learning how to take good notes during a class can be a challenge since each class is different with different types of material and the different teaching styles of the professors.  What you may do for taking notes in one class may not work in another.  To help you figure out how to take notes, York University has developed a very useful website to get you started, http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/lsp/notesonline/note1.htm.  This website provides helpful advice on effective note taking in a university setting. It’s Canadian, but don’t let the spelling throw you off. There are many helpful hints including examples of two methods for taking notes.

• Critical Thinking Skills - This often is one of the most difficult for new college students.  Up to this point in a student's life, one often has not needed to to do much more than regurgitate facts or do problems/work beyond simple logic or reading comprehension. Some students have had some experience with critical thinking skills, but not to the limit that will be expected of them in thier college classes.  Professors want to push you past what you think are your limits and to get you to question everything.  You are not to simply regurgitate facts, but you are expected to apply the logic skills and facts presented to you in class to develope even more questions.  The Counselling Services of The University of Victoria gives some very basic guidelines as to what critical thinking is and what is expected of you, http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/crit.html.  (They have some other interesting sites that could be very useful so you should also check them out when you have time.)  I think Steven D. Schafersman gave the best definition of Critical thinking on his "An Introduction to Critical Thinking" website:

  "Critical thinking means correct thinking in the pursuit of relevant and reliable knowledge about the world. Another way to describe it is reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skillful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. A person who thinks critically can ask appropriate questions, gather relevant information, efficiently and creatively sort through this information, reason logically from this information, and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world that enable one to live and act successfully in it. Critical thinking is not being able to process information well enough to know to stop for red lights or whether you received the correct change at the supermarket. Such low-order thinking, critical and useful though it may be, is sufficient only for personal survival; most individuals master this. True critical thinking is higher-order thinking, enabling a person to, for example, responsibly judge between political candidates, serve on a murder trial jury, evaluate society's need for nuclear power plants, and assess the consequences of global warming. Critical thinking enables an individual to be a responsible citizen who contributes to society, and not be merely a consumer of society's distractions."

• Study Skills - Study skills actually include all of the items listed above and their application to studying the course material outside of the classroom.  If your study skills are done right, students should study more efficiently, be able to remember more material over a longer period of time, improve your note writing skills, test taking skills, reading skills and group work skills. Good study skills will help one see the connections between the lecture, the readings and how they are applied in the "real world".   Be aware that other resources to help you study can include your faculty (they once were students) and your academic advisor (they once were students too!) Study skills are also about setting goals for the semester, the month, the week and each day. Statistics show that those who have goals (especially written ones) are more successful than those who have not set goals.  Some useful web sites for students to explore are listed here.  Penn State Altoona Learning Resources Center, http://www.psu.edu/dept/altoonalrc/jan00.htm, click on the “Setting goals” link.  Dartmouth provides a web site, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/,  with videos on study skills.  The Study Guides and Strategies website, http://www.studygs.net/,  provides numerous useful topics such as “Preparing,” “Learning,” “Studying,” “Taking Tests,” “Writing Basics,” “Reading Skills,” and so much more.  Explore these topics and see how many useful hints you can find to improve your study skills and increase your potential for success.  One problem that all students run into is how to read and understand complicated material.  The University of St. Thomas has developed a nice handout to help with strategies for How to Read Difficult Material.

• How to Survive Exam Week -  Studying for Finals can be one of the most stressful times of the semester.  It is what often decides what your final grade in a class will be and whether or not you will maintain a required GPA or if you will need to retake a class.  The Division of Undergraduate Studies has developed a guide for "How to Survive Exam Week" that gives you some very important pointers to keep in mind as you prepare for your final exams.  It even includes some "all-nighter survival tips."  This guide is not only useful for finals week, but provides some very good and useful tips on how to study in general during the semester.  
  

Other Links of Interest

• Critical thinking skills, http://www.simeonmagic.com/.  There’s a magic game at this site that will really make you think. After you figure out the trick, ask yourself what other websites might have a trick to them.
• Tests, tests, tests, http://www.2h.com/.  This site has links to IQ tests, personality tests, and entrepreneurial tests as well as puzzles.