Making It Right The Next Time: Evaluating Semester Challenges & Struggles
Zenaida highlights the challenges of overcoming academic hurdles and lists the most important tips to tackling exams and assignments.
Every semester, I find myself evaluating where I could have made changes for more productivity. As a senior in college now, I feel like I land broadly on the same things every single time. Looking back on freshman year especially, I see very glaring areas where I could have made some of those changes. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20.
For me personally, one of the most difficult moments of freshman year was my first midterm week. It was my first real test period at school. I had been doing fine with my weekly problem sets and essays, but midterm week threw me a curveball. Not only did I have my regular assignments due, but I also had to study for midterm exams and attend classes as scheduled. In addition, as opposed to finals period, there was no reading week to help me orient myself and focus on studying exclusively for exams. I also realized that I left myself at a disadvantage by not doing a better job of keeping up with my classes. So here are a few tips I have accumulated over the years that have been really helpful in preparing for difficult exam and assignment periods.
Read the material before you get to class (Actually!): Ok I know you’ve heard this all the time everywhere, but that’s probably because it actually works. Reading your course material before class definitely allows you to better retain the information. It also makes it way easier to keep up in class. If you don’t have time to read, skimming the material can be very helpful also!
Go over class notes at the end of every week: This is huge. Going over class notes weekly ensures that when the big exam hits, you’re not looking at stuff that you learned 8 weeks ago for the first time since your lecture. It makes reviewing for exams so much less stressful.
Before writing a paper, talk to your professor about thesis topics and how you’re going to build your essay: For my paper writing classes, this is one of the most helpful tips. It’s always good to get feedback on the topic that you want to write about before you even start writing. Then, if there’s something you’re doing wrong, you don’t have to waste time writing a whole paper and receiving a less than stellar grade on it.
Go through old exams/comments on papers: This is something that I absolutely did not do freshman year and regret constantly. I had a tendency to throw graded exams/papers into the pit of my backpack because I assumed it was over and done with. It is so important that you comb through the assignments that you receive back to see what you’ve done right and what you’ve done wrong. You want to make sure you’re taking your professor’s comments on your work and applying them to your future assignments.
Of course every semester is different, but I feel like these have been extremely helpful to me in exam prep over the years. I can’t say even now that I do all of these perfectly, but by midterms/finals week, I definitely wish I had gotten these out of the way when I should have.
Zenaida is RBTM Inc.'s Mentee Coordinator. In her spare time, she enjoys wasting her life away on youtube and baby talking to dogs. She loves all things J.Cole and has the usual vague, millennial, aspirations of changing the world one day. You can contact Zenaida at zenchill@princeton.edu.
