So last week I got some great news from back east. Turns out my younger brother has been selected for a basketball scholarship to a school in North Bay, Ontario. Naturally this got my big brother muscles working as I wondered about what advice I could pass down to help him be prepared for the onslaught of books, lectures, tests, and projects to come. Of course, I can't hope to develop a comprehensive list of what everyone needs to know as they begin their quest for higher education, and that is where this blog comes in. My hope is that anyone who reads it and thinks of some glaring oversight will add it to the comments section. In the end, as a team, we might even come up with something useful. But let's get to it:
Things I Wish I Knew About University:
1) This ain't no reading competition
For the purposes of maintaining a long-running inside joke, I was obliged to make this "Rule #1" but that doesn't make it any less true. The further you go in school, the more important presentation skills become. Nothing shows that you know your stuff like being able to confidently stand in front of a room of peers and teach them about it. Similarly, nothing makes you look more awkward than stuttering, mumbling, reading a script, or falling into the deadly trap of using "umm," "like," "uh," etc. If you need time to think about what you want to say, stay silent or use sentences to fill the gaps. Some of my favourites are "That is an excellent question." or "I'm glad you asked that." Also, don't underestimate the power of a relaxed presentation style. A few jokes and a laid back attitude puts everyone at ease and helps them care about what you're saying instead of feeling bad for you.
2) Laptops are both handy and dangerous
A computer is an indispensable tool for anyone in university. It lets you stay organized; keeps you in contact with far away family and friends; and can lead to productive group study sessions. However, one thing that I have learned over my 6 years of post-secondary work is that, generally speaking, a laptop is a poor note taking tool. Sure it will save you paper. Sure, it's more organized than notebooks or loose leaf paper. That doesn't change the fact that you are constantly tempted to go online and read about hockey stats or cruise reddit. If you are easily distracted (and who among us isn't?) leave the laptop at home and take notes the old fashioned way. You'll be more engaged, remember more, and won't have to worry about losing or damaging your most expensive resource.
3) Work smart, not hard.
This may seem like bad advice, and in the wrong hands it most certainly could be. It's painfully easy to justify not working when there is no one looking over your shoulder to keep you in line. That being said, I have also met too many people who lock themselves up in their room and cram their lives away. University is about learning, but it's also about having fun. It's one of the only times in your life when you're not expected to hold down a full-time job and deal with all the crap that goes along with being a real adult. My working philosophy has been to evaluate the class and tailor my habits to how it functions. If the teacher posts comprehensive notes online, I don't need to write down too much of what they say. If the online notes suck or are non-existent, I write a lot more. If I know a lot about a topic we're dicussing, I skim the reading for key points. If I'm totally lost, I'll read every sentence in the book and take detailed notes. When I'm struggling particularly hard in a class I always try to come up with two or three questions to ask during the lecture, just to stay engaged.
4) Don't be "That guy," but don't hate on him too much either.
Every class has one. The person who goes out of their way to talk over other people or ask questions that have little to do with the topic at hand. It can be infuriating when all you want to do is get through the lecture and go back to bed. They come off as arrogant and inconsiderate and, subsequently, don't have a huge fan club. Being that guy makes it hard to work with other people and tough to find a group who wants to study with you. The other side of the coin is that "that guy" is usually being overly chatty because he is insecure about his abilities in the class. He knows he can show interest and let the prof know that he's trying, but sometimes takes it a little too far. My advice on this point is basically that we're all in this together. Try to respect classroom etiquette (you'll pick up on it pretty quickly) but don't spend too much time hating on the people who ignore it. You'll need all the positive energy you can muster when finals roll around.
5) Read for pleasure.
One of the comments I heard most often during my undergrad was "How do you have the energy to read things other than class material?" My answer was usually something along the lines of, "If I didn't read things about mountain climbers, I would go crazy and flunk out anyway." My justification was that my grades under the system of pleasure reading plus class reading were the highest grades I was capable of. Changing the system would just make things worse. Not only is it a nice break to read something you chose, but it helps you become a better, faster reader who retains more. You can take skills you develop doing things you care about and use them to do better at things you don't. By reading "Between a Rock and Hard Place" on the bus, I was better able to fly through "Advanced Parametric Statistics for the Social Sciences." That's not to say I enjoyed the latter as much as the former, but I didn't struggle as much with it. Pleasure reading also helps you know what you're really interested in and will help you pick classes you care about. Nothing is worse that studying something you have no passion for and a salient reminder of your real interests helps keep things in perspective.
I'll leave it there for now in the interest of keeping this blog at a manageable length. Before I sign off, though, I just want to take a few lines to congratulate my brother on achieving something he has wanted for a long time and has had to work really hard to attain. Along the way there have been setbacks, most notably a blown out knee that required invasive surgery, but he has never given up and has proven more than a few people wrong. I'm really proud and hope he is too.
Cheers,
Steve
Image courtesy of quickmeme.com
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