Study Tips

It never ceases to amaze me how many people will say, “I don’t like to read.”  My first thought, that I am usually lucky enough to stop before it comes out of my mouth is, “then how did you get through college?”  College degrees are nothing but classes made of subjects made of reading.  Even the math classes involve some amount of text comprehension.  Reading for a degree course isn’t an option. It’s a requirement.  For each type of subject there are different types of reading that can be used.

College classes with high volumes of textual reading (from text books) can best be served by speed reading.  Speed reading is the art of controlling your eyes in such a way they pick up more of the content without spending time on the nuances of writing such as the articles or adverbs.  Speed reading trains you eyes to skim over material picking out important words and leaving the rest behind.  For history book chapters or long essays on philosophy, speed reading is best.

Critical reading is much slower. It takes every word, setting and phrase into account to make more meaning about the text being read.  Critical reading will be used in most of your upper division courses you take getting your degree. Classes involving poetry, case studies, statistics or analysis of any kind will likely require critical readings.

Comprehensive reading means you take in the whole text and use it to understand the whole of what you’re reading.  A comprehensive ready doesn’t get just the facts like a speed reader and doesn’t have to know all the why’s like a critical reader. A comprehensive reader just takes in all the material at face value and creates an understanding from it.  Classes where you read novels, theories or instructional documents are a good place for comprehensive reading.

In the in course of obtaining a full college degree, you will do many types of reading for different classes and when its all done and your diploma is framed on your wall, then you can go back to your life as you knew where reading was for pleasure and only something you wanted to do.

Cramming my 6 foot tall frame into a tiny seat by the window with my purse and laptop on the floor and my elbows jammed up against my sides is never a very comfortable way to get somewhere, even if I am excited about where I am going.  Like many students I often peer up to the first class section of the plane and see the wide seats, the free drinks and the relative ease and comfort of their journey.  I used to believe first class seats were for actors and rich businessmen but more and more I am seeing college students up there and I have to begin to wonder how in the world these students are getting cheap first class airline fares.

A little research was all I needed to find out where these cheap student airline fares were coming from.  Some colleges have their own travel agencies or deals with existing agencies to provide help for students taking holidays or trips abroad.  These agencies can book seats with discounts for students that allow them to lower to cost of the trip.  If the trip can in anyway be shown to be a necessary part of a class or lesson sought in the pursuit of the college degree, many airlines have student travel discounts to aid with that.  Contact your individual airline and find out what discounts they have for first class student travel.

Students can also get cheap first class fares by booking later. When you’re busying doing your job and working on your college degree it is sometimes hard to plan ahead and trips get taken without much notice. Many websites online serve the “fast travel” population by offering greatly reduced first class fares to seats on planes that haven’t sold yet and able to be sold more cheaply in order to fill the seat. The drawback may be the flight to where you want to go is full, so don’t wait too late to book those tickets if you really have your heart set on a certain flight.

Those big cushy first class seats with their own bathroom and dedicated flight attendant aren’t just for fat cats and old ladies anymore. Use the resources available to you and find yourself flying in style.

The best part of being a young college student pursuing a degree is the time you have between during breaks and summer to travel around and see the world. Once you get a job and family and life becomes blessed with both more joy and more responsibility, the time to travel is often limited and you have to ask the whole family where they want to go.  So my advice is, travel while you’re young and travel in style.  There are a number of ways you can take the trip of a lifetime as a student and still travel first class. 

First class student airfare is available from many airlines.  Use their website or contact and specialty travel agency and see what student or “blue passes” they have to offer that allow students a change to fly first class at a discounted airfare.  It’s a pretty good deal when realize a first class ticket can cost up to 5 times as much as a regular one. Some travel agencies that cater to college students also have tours and travel packages put together in advance that have first class student airfare as one of the benefits. Check your student activity center at your college to see which agencies offer that service.

Flexibility is not only the key to getting a college degree; it’s also a key in cheap first class student travel. Many airlines overbook their flights, particularly if the flight is a common one that has several flights throughout the day leaving from the same location.  If you listen to the announcements at the gate, they will ask for someone to give up their seat in return for a voucher for a first class upgraded seat on the next flight.   Most of the time it means waiting in the airport and hour or two longer, but sitting in the first class section may be worth the wait. It’s important to remember you can’t take this option if you have a connecting flight because it will set your whole time schedule off. But if you’re flexible, you can fly in the front with better food and more leg room.

Part of getting your college degree is memory making.  By finding some inexpensive first class student airfare you can make pleasant memories that last a lifetime.

I love reading. I read Stephen King stories, Margaret Atwood novels, and of course, Harry Potter books with great passion. I can shoot through one of those things in a weekend. When I was in college reading wasn’t always so fun. I enjoyed Modern Literature when I got to read Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, but really got bogged down about halfway through The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is tragic because the Roman Empire was a really cool topic. Key to my ability to get a degree was the ability to learn to read quickly and move forward through information.

The hard part about reading for a degree course is the fact that you aren’t reading what you choose; you are reading what they choose. There are some good survival skills you can use to get through the longer tomes of assigned reading faster. Skimming is one way to get through it. If you know the material somewhat you can always skim the chapter, which means to a surface reading picking out just a few important ideas or phrases. Some textbooks are written for skimmers and put the important ideas like vocabulary words or key thoughts in bold on the page or in a list at the end of the chapter called, “key concepts”. Remember, skimming won’t give you detailed information but will should give you enough of an overview to participate in your class discussion.

Another reading technique is headlining. Many textbooks for college courses write their information in short paragraphs with headlines about each section that describes the next few paragraphs. Read the headline and the first paragraph of each section where the topic sentence is usually located. If you feel you understand the concept and facts well enough, then go to the next section. Again, like skimming it might not tell you everything you need to know, but it will prepare you with enough background material to know what people are talking about when the discussion gets started.

Reading for pleasure is a fun and life-giving activity. Reading for grades is not, but it is a necessary part of your educational journey.

When I write an essay or longer work and do the research I always find interest of funny things and I think, “Man, I wish I had said that!” Usually it’s a quotation that is funny or smart and I want people to think I’m that clever. But taking credit for someone else’s words is neither funny nor smart so I always make sure to include a reference. A reference is an indication of where the quotation, statistic, fact or idea came from when it’s presented in your work. As you pursue your college degree, its import you know how to write a reference.

There are three types of references: Footnote, where the material is assigned a number by page which corresponds to an entry at the bottom of the page that tells the source, author, page number or URL. Endnote, where the material is assigned a number by chapter and the source information is compiled in a list on the back. Parenthetical, where the source author and page number is listed in parenthesis right after the source but the author is listed on the bibliography in the back. When you are earning your college degree these are the three major types you will use.

When doing your research make sure to scan the index or publishing copywriter information to make sure you have all that down, and be sure to write the page number of the source or exact title of the website page so it’s available when doing the writing. A good reference is one where the reader could find the exact quotation or idea but using your reference as a map. If they can’t come up with the source of your quotation, then the writing is not the appropriate level for a college degree.

Plagiarism is a serious academic crime and to be avoided at all costs. Even if you wish they were your words, make sure that the reader can tell if they’re not.

Like most people, I have opinions and I like to share them. Its not that I think I’m smarter or better than anyone else, but I like people to hear my point of view. I like it even better when they share it. For that reason, one of the best skills I learned in college was how to go about writing a persuasive essay. Essays are a huge part of getting a college degree. Some colleges make you write an essay just to get in to the school. Talk about the need to be persuasive! Almost every college starts you out with Freshman English where you learn the finer points of persuasive essay writing. It’s not just a degree requirement, it’s a life requirement.

The first step in writing a persuasive essay is to know what you are trying to get people to think or do. You are going to make a change in their thinking in some way. That’s a good thing because going to college is all about changing the way you think. Once you know what change you are trying to make, come up with a list of reasons why your idea is better or reasonable. I like to find reasons that aren’t just important to me, but are helpful to anyone. For example, if I want to write a persuasive essay on recycling, I don’t just talk about how I think it’s important. One of the first things I learned in college was that no one cares what I think is important. They care about what they think is important. Instead I would write about why it’s important to them not to waste the planet’s resources. Persuasion is always focused on the person you want to persuade.

The next step is to have support or back-up material for your view. Getting a college degree means you are working with high level thinking skills. It’s not enough to say, “Because I think so”. So do some research and find evidence, data, statistics or an expert to show your idea is valid and meaningful. You don’t have to be a specialist, but it’s good to have one on your side.

Finally, write your persuasive essay clearly and directly. State your position, give the reasons and back-up evidence you researched, and end with a conclusion that helps people wrap up the thought in a clear way. Remember, you start persuading the minute you get ready to go to college for a degree. You’ll still be persuading when you graduate.

“Why do I have to study this stuff?” I would whine all the way through high school grammar. “I am never going to use it. When am I ever going to be referencing essays?” My teacher would just laugh and assign us five more questions. I never knew why she found that so funny until I started working on my college degree. Then it hit me. Not only did she know I was going to need this “stuff”, she also knew I was going to use it almost every day. Referencing, the art of showing where a quote or source material actually come from, is a part of almost every paper you will write pursuing your degree. Because so much of research and content are from online or printed essays, referencing them is an important thing to know.

What you have to remember about referencing essays is that an essay is a smaller work of non-fiction usually published as part of a whole work. When you are referencing essays you need to know the title and author of the essay, but also the title and author of the larger work that it come from. For example if I am quoting from an essay entitled, “Why Green Tomatoes Are Better for Frying”, I would cite the author of the essay, Joyce Lane, and then site the book, Southern Cooking for Beginners edited by Carole Klingman.

In the MLA (Modern Language Association) style of referencing which is used for degree essays involving humanities and liberal arts, essays are always given quotations and the book or resource is given italics or handled the way the larger resource should be handled. Working at the college level, you are actually citing a source within a source and the grammar rules for both types of sources must be applied.

Grammar can seem like a lot of rules all at the same time, however once you realize how important they will be to your daily life as you are earning your college degree you’ll discover the time you spend on the “stuff” will save you from whining far into your future.

Talent is a real thing, and there are many talented people around. I discovered while getting my degree in college that it’s easy to fall into the myth of talent. The myth is that some people are born with it and some people who aren’t. Somehow I got the idea talented writers came out of the womb with pens in their hands and words in their heads. They never had to struggle with grammar or awkward sentences and writing flowed out of them as effortlessly as their breath. I could not have been more wrong. Writing isn’t about some magical ability dropped on just a few lucky souls. Good writing is about researching, re-organizing, and re-writing. I learned that when I had to study the skill of academic report writing.

Writing of the academic nature involves creating an organized pathway of information that gives the reader knowledge through a series of arguments and proofs. An academic report is to a college degree what the meat is to a sandwich. The ability to take information, research facts and opinions about it, and write it in an organized fashion with an introduction, research, discussion and conclusion is the ability which shows the value of your college education to the world. Every job requires some kind of reporting, and every boss is looking for people who write factual information clearly.

An important element of academic report writing other than the organization flow of thought is re-writing. Proofread your report carefully and make sure it is free of grammar and spelling errors. Check the statistics and facts to be sure you didn’t transpose numbers or leave out a source citation. Put your report on a shelf overnight and read it the next day. Does it say what you meant for it to say? Factual writing has a collegiate standard to live up to and meeting that standard isn’t about some illusive magical talent. It’s about careful attention to detail, organization and the discipline to do the work.

When it comes to my shopping and tendencies to bargain hunt, I always have to tell my friends I am not “cheap”.  I am “value seeking”.  Value is more than a word we throw around during holiday sales and on used car lots.  Value is a formula that measures what up put in, versus what you get out. If you get out more than you put in, you have something with value. When thinking of the money, time, energy and effort you are putting into college the natural questions becomes, “What is the value of a college degree?”

Your college degree will be filled with many types of value. Financially, we know that people with college degrees make, on average, two to three times more money than people without them. College degrees also open the door to advanced degrees which add more capability for you to earn a higher wager and advance in your workplace.  A college degree opens the doors to employment wider and faster than trying to earn all the experience you can working but having no education to show for your time. A college degree also removes the barrier that keeps you from advancing farther in your work. Some jobs in your company require a degree. Even if you know the job backwards and forwards, without the degree, it will go to someone else.

There is more value than just financial and vocational.  Having a college degree changes you. It shapes the way you think and gives you skills for critical analysis, thoughtful response and insightful decisions. A college degree will also broaden the scope of your human experience by exposing you to new cultures, thoughts, arts and sciences. You become a well rounded person and are affirmed in the knowledge that you have the discipline it takes to get any job done.

When you look at the diploma framed on the wall with your name on it, you will always be proud and know that your college degree has brought you a lifetime of pride, accomplishment and opportunity. That is value.