This post is all about how to be a successful college student.
You must be a college student trying to bring up your grades and get through the semester. Or you’re already a good student and are researching ways to be a better one.
I actually get really cocky when I talk about my schooling system because I think my work ethic is phenomenal.
It is definitely reflected in my grades.
No, it’s not because I am super smart and can learn very easily. It’s quite the opposite, honestly.
My boyfriend tells me all the time that I take too long on assignments and sometimes even waste my time (he’s a good one I promise). It just takes a while for me to grasp concepts. So, I can’t get things done as quickly as others.
I made this list of how to be a successful college student that I (mostly) follow to make up for the amount of time it takes me to complete assignments and understand concepts.
I think my tips will help you meet and maintain your successful education expectations too.
This post is all about how to be a successful college student.
Disclaimer
I am not an expert or professional in how to be a successful college student. These tips and tricks work for me and help me become the successful college student that I think I am. I cannot guarantee that you will pass the class the way you want to but I can guarantee you to be closer to becoming a successful college student than before you implemented these tips and tricks. If all else fails, the best person to ask for help is your professor (within reason).
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Let’s begin.
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How To Be A Successful College Student
1. Utilize Office Hours
The point of professors having office hours is so that students are guaranteed a time frame of when they can visit the professor.
During office hours, students can ask any questions that may have about class content, personal events that may conflict with the class, or to build a student-teacher relationship so the professor can understand you as a student and you can understand them as a professor.
I only recently learned the power of office hours. I utilize the office hours mainly for my Organic II lecture class because this is a class that I have a really hard time understanding the concepts for from one lecture alone.
What I realized from going to office hours is that the professor will help you and guide you towards the material that is necessary for the class.
Most of the time when you attend lectures, the professor goes over every tiny detail possible to ensure you have the fundamentals, but as soon as the examination period comes around, they only test you on 70% of the content that was covered. (Sometimes less than that.)
So, when you go to office hours and ask questions, they are most likely going to point you in the direction that is likely to help you pass the class.
If you ask them about a certain concept that isn’t going to be on the exam (obviously, you don’t know this), then the professor will briefly answer your question and then start pointing you towards more important concepts.
Make Sure You Are Doing This!
When you go to office hours, you need to show up with questions already prepared. By prepared questions, I mean questions that you have after you already attempted to answer the question by yourself.
For example, you could go to office hours and say:
“Hi [ ], I attempted to do this math problem but I keep getting stuck at this point. I think I am supposed to solve it this way. Am I on the right track?”
When you ask questions like this, it shows that you are actively trying to learn from your mistakes.
Professors love students that are okay with being wrong and want to correct those mistakes.
Asking these types of questions shows the professor that you are trying and gives them more of a reason to help you out. (Because professors don’t have to waste their time helping you if they think you aren’t trying although most of them will anyway.)
As an example, this is what you DO NOT want to do when you go to office hours:
“Did I miss anything important in the last lecture? I wasn’t there.”
“Can you go through this worksheet with me? I looked at it and I don’t know how to do any of it. *shows empty worksheet*
With the second approach, you give off the impression that you are lazy and aren’t trying to find solutions on your own.
Sure, some people may argue “but going to office hours is me trying to find solutions to my issues.”
But in these situations, you didn’t try hard enough to find the solutions.
You could have looked at the syllabus, looked at announcements, or asked classmates (if you have contact with them).
The professors have other responsibilities and can’t spend their time answering questions like these.
Sure, they will still answer your questions, but just know that they are probably internally hating you.
Professors are more likely to help you if you show that you deserve to be helped.
2. Attend All Class Lectures
As a college student myself, I cannot tell you how much it bugs me when I listen to my classmates complain about how terribly they are doing in class when they don’t show up half the time.
If you come to class but spend your time on your phone or doing other classwork or who knows what, you are still not attending class. You’re just wasting the professor’s time and your money.
I will admit that sometimes, I attend lectures, find it super boring or pointless, and even blank out, but I have at least exposed myself to the content. Exposing yourself to content ahead of time makes the studying process easier later.
Showing up also gives the professor the impression that you care about your education. Even if you don’t, showing up gives them that false sense of responsibility from you and still puts you on their good side.
For the people that don’t show up at all? Professors most likely despise them.
If you have a legit reason for why you need to miss the lecture, you need to email the professor ahead of time so that they are at least aware of why you are not showing up and won’t be too upset at you.
Honestly, most professors don’t care whether you show up or not but when it comes down to when you ask for help and they only see you as a lazy student, then it matters.
Overall, just show up to lectures.
It’s better for you in the long run and since you’re paying for it anyway, you might as well take advantage of the opportunity to hear about the content from the person who is giving you the end-of-semester grade.
3. Read The Syllabus
I used to be one of those students that would brush off the syllabus and not look at it because it looked like a packet of gibberish. I was dumb for thinking that.
Normally what the syllabus entails are the expectations that the professor has of their students. Some examples are how to approach the professor, when it is and isn’t okay to contact the professor, what the student needs to do if they want to pass the class, etc.
The syllabus also has the semester schedule of what topics are being covered and when, and when the due dates are for assignments. It is pretty much a pamphlet of all the things you need to know about the class.
The biggest advantage I see to utilizing the syllabus is being able to write down the assignment due dates ahead of time. This allows the student to plan ahead accordingly and not fall behind because they are already aware of assignment due dates that are coming up.
Most professors put a lot of effort into their syllabus to make it easier for both the student and the professor to get through the semester.
Having a syllabus makes it easier for the professor and the student because when the student has a question and the professor is busy, the answer is most likely in the syllabus.
A lot of the syllabi I have said somewhere that the professor will not answer questions in emails if the syllabus answers them.
So, I always look at the syllabus before I email the professor.
The last thing I want to do is waste their time and get on their nerves. You should respect their time too!
4. Study Days Before The Exam
I’m actually a hypocrite for putting this one on here but I still find this advice very real and true for what successful college students do.
You have to study long before the night before the exam.
When people say to study in advance, they don’t mean flipping through your notes every single day from the moment you write them down. They mean to make study guides, make flashcards, make bullet lists of organized content, and overall just rewrite the notes, but in a clearer way.
It is safe to say that rereading notes and doing nothing else is not the best way to study (unless you’re that one person that can study this way).
The best way to study is by interacting with the content.
During lectures or whenever I am looking over notes, I always have a pen and highlighter with me.
The pen is to write down extra information that isn’t already written down and to rewrite the content in my own words to make sure I understand what is being said.
The highlighter is used to highlight important content that the professor specifically says is important to know and which content is most likely going to be covered on the exam.
Writing on notes and highlighting important content is considered studying because you are actively using your brain to think about the concepts and their importance.
You will most likely do this soon after these notes are taken. Then, when the time comes to study heavily for the exam and cram it all in your brain, your notes are all organized and rewritten the way you can understand them.
The highlights will also stand out significantly to ensure you are prioritizing the concepts you need to study first and the most.
Extra Tip
In my opinion, the most important days of the semesters are the days the professors have “review days”.
Review days are when they spend the lecture narrowing down the concepts that will be covered on the exam.
I mentioned before that most professors cover 100% of the topics in class lectures but only test on about 70% of them. These review days are your chance to know exactly what that 70% of the topics are.
Since professors offer these review days, I HIGHLY recommend that you pay as much attention to what they say as possible.
They are pretty much giving you the answers to the exam without giving you the exact answers to the exam.
Write everything they say down.
You also have to remember that professors want you to pass (even if it doesn’t seem that way based on the assignments they have you do and the exam questions they give you).
They wouldn’t make you waste your time studying the concepts that aren’t important for passing the class (at least the good professors won’t).
5. Join Study Groups, Make Study Groups, Or Both!
It wasn’t until my second year of college that I realized the importance of study groups.
One of the many benefits of being in study groups is having multiple minds come together to find a solution.
Whenever a group of people is studying together, they would each contribute a piece of their brain and connect the pieces of the concepts.
So, say I was in a study group and we were trying to figure out how to solve (4×5)/6. There would be students that think they know exactly how to solve it, the students that sort of know-how to solve it, and the students that don’t know how to solve it at all.
The students that think they know exactly how to solve it would solve it for everyone else to see and further prove that they have mastered the concept.
The students that sort of know-how to solve it would correct their mistakes for how they thought they could solve it.
Lastly, the students that didn’t know how to solve the problem at all are exposed to the concept and can learn how to solve it by another student.
Based on the example I just gave you, it is apparent that every student at different levels of learning benefits from being in study groups.
I do have a tip for you though when it comes to being in study groups.
I highly recommend that you try to join more than one study group. The more minds you have access to, the more useful information you’ll have access to.
How I Utilize Study Groups
I am currently in two study groups for my Organic II lecture class.
One of the study groups is the generalized class study group that 60% of the class is in. In this group, the students share information about deadlines, questions to assignments, and anything extra the professor said that someone else might have missed.
The other study group I am in is more targeted at people that think the same way I do. By that, I mean that these people are motivated the same way I am and study the same way I do.
The benefit of being part of this smaller and targeted group of like-minded people is so that I surround myself with people that can help me learn concepts when I need help.
Sure, the larger group can too, but when there are so many people, it’s really hard to come to the conclusion of what is potentially right or wrong. This is because there are so many different answers from so many different people.
The smaller group allows for everyone’s questions to get answered and is probably more efficient when studying.
Overall, having two different study groups gives two different perspectives of approaching the class.
Ending Note
I actually wrote this post a lot faster than I expected.
Is it the fact that I need this uploaded in less than 12 hours? Do I love school too much? Lol, it’s both.
But anyway, if you can’t already tell, I absolutely love school and will be so sad when I graduate.
But until then, I can at least share my tips with you on how I make it through every semester “successfully”.
I hope you liked these tips, and I hope they like you to help you do well in college too.
Did you see a boost in your grades? Do you feel as if you are becoming the successful student that you desire to be?
Let me know what you think of these tips. Have a good day!
P.S. If you aren’t doing so hot in school right now, just shrug it off, keep trying to find new study methods, and know that everything is going to be okay (check out Linh Truong for some college studying aesthetic). One day, something will click for you. It wasn’t until college that I became the most efficient I had ever been when studying.
This post was all about how to be a successful college student.
Jenny in Neverland says
It’s been a long time since I was in sixth form college and I’ll be honest I wasn’t the best student! I wish I had this post back then x
Lily-Anne says
I’m glad you think this post would have been useful to you! (You can always go back to school, right? 👀)