By Rodney E. Rohde, PhD
- It's the syllabus, stupid!
- Exams, in most cases, will not be like the ones you took in high school or dual-credit community college.
- Visit your professor and graduate instructors.
- Be alert for what your professor writes on the board, course blogs, emails or other interactions during the lecture or outside of the formal coursework.
- Writing matters – yes, even the grammar counts!
- Your mom was right – social skills and good manners are where the rubber meets the road.
- Do more than what's expected!
- Surround yourself with great mentors.
- Time is truly precious, so don't waste mine — or yours.
- If you have to work, try to limit the hours. Better yet, find a student worker position on campus.
- Try to find internships and other paid or non-paid opportunities to gain work experience with your career skills.
What would your #12 be?
Make time for sleep, decent food, and exercise (probably in that order, but importance may vary by individual. But the importance of sleep is generally vastly underrated in American culture in general, and especially on campus.)
ReplyDeleteAre "campus jobs" still a thing (and/or will they be once the new federal budget comes into play)? It seems to me that an awful lot of on-campus work is outsourced, and that there are fewer work-study jobs than when I was a student.
Be selective in what you put online.
ReplyDeleteI instantly tune out when I see something was part of a TED talk. There's an insufferability in every one I've seen. I hate what I've become by the way. Once, do you remember, I was quite cheery, indefatigable was a term I heard. I am on the way to being a crank, and it's partly age but mostly just the experiences I've been having in my department and classrooms. Sorry. I'm already sorry about the TED talk thing. But too exhausted to go back and delete. Oh, the button is hard to press.
ReplyDeleteCal, you must be a hockey fan? Will Ottawa persist?
XOXO
Fabby
PS: Oh, #12: Get rid of the notion that one can study, write essays, do research etc., with music blasting, while watching So You Think You Can Dance in the background, etc.
OTTAWA BETTER PERSIST OR I LOST MY VOICE IN OT1 FOR NOTHING!!!!!
ReplyDelete12. Don't e-mail your professor in all caps ever, not even for important things like the need for the Penguins to go down. Pseudonymously blog in whatever font you need, but only as long as it's about hockey.
12. Do not allow yourself to fall behind in your work. The notion of "catching up by the end of the semester" is a complete mirage.
ReplyDeleteThis one is excellent. If I were a more dedicated teacher, I'd have it tattooed on my forehead, or at least printed on a t-shirt to wear on the first day of class, and periodically thereafter.
DeleteI do address the subject in my syllabus (everybody misses a day here and there, but falling a week or more behind, for whatever reason, significantly decreases chances of passing). I guess that returns us to #1.
Thanks for the agreement, Cassandra! This was my own best rule of thumb in college—especially in courses with heavy reading loads, where it was all too tempting to lay down an unfinished burden and swear you'd get back to it. . . .
DeleteSave every paper, every email, and every form that you submit, receive, and sign. Everybody makes mistakes, even professors and administrators. It is a million times easier to help them fix their mistakes if you have a paper trail.
ReplyDeleteAnd the (entirely complementary, to my mind) corollary: at the same time, especially if you're going to claim you did (or didn't) do something, be aware that, like it or not, you're leaving an electronic trail, and that even professors who are generally not fond of electronic surveillance will check that trail if your story sounds the least bit fishy (and most experienced proffies are just a bit suspicious of most stories, thanks to long and disillusioning experience). We can see your schedule (and probably your transcript) on the registrar's site, we can see when you last checked into the LMS, and we even know how to check the history/file info on a Word document (which can be interesting in some situations). Also, we know our colleagues in the department office, and what they are and aren't likely to have said to you.
DeleteWe'll probably give you the benefit of the doubt, and we'll certainly concede mistakes when we make them (and you're able to remind us -- and often the evidence is not only in your inbox, but in our sent mail), but we'll also check stories with the methods available to us, and really outrageous or repeated lies may result in an honor/student conduct charge.
12. Work for what you will learn, not for the grade you (hope) you will get.
ReplyDeleteI like this one a lot. It even holds true (or ought to) for the courses that might not be in your own field but that you're required to take: they're required for a reason, and what you stand to learn in them is highly likely to come in handy sooner or later.
ReplyDelete