How to be a Successful University Student

Nowadays and especially in our context its very common to hear about students failing subjects or not having the performance they desire in college.

Lalo and Suny present us a brief essay on how to be a successful in university. 

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How to be a Successful University Student

Many students wonder why some of their classmates are good students and some of them are not; they think that to be a good and successful student just implies the intelligence. Certainly the intelligence plays an important role to become a successful student but the motivation and the strategies are also important.

University students are responsible for their own studies and for what they learn and how they learn it, this is, being a university student implies a lot of responsibilities. All the university students have to develop their academic skills and get some habits of work to become a successful student.

According to Northedge (1994), “there are many different aspects to learning how to study, all of which tend to be gathered under the general heading of study skills” (p. 15), all the people study effectively in different ways, so no one can tell you how to study, but knowing about ways of working that other people have found useful should help you to develop and improve your own way of study.

First of all, if you want to become successful you must be well motivated and you have to get yourself organized, this is, you have to learn how to manage time. Sometimes when studying comes into your life it generally means that something else has to go, so you have to decide what to do and when to do it, but when you first start planning your time, you could find it very difficult simply because you are not used to.

It is recommended to plan the activities that you are used to perform in a time-table and try to identify where your time is normally taken up. By organizing the time you can think about what you are doing instead of just drifting; however it is not just plan, you have to follow your plan as best as you can. In this way you can ensure that you devote enough time for study and enough for recreation.

You, as a university student, have to avoid being distracted when you are studying; certainly distractions offer the chance to escape from the uncertainties of studying. To avoid any kind of distractions you should set up a place to study.

Many students find important to set a place to study where they are able to work undisturbed, with space to spread their books and papers out, easy access to their files, and good lighting and heating. And it is also important to follow some techniques, habits, and strategies that you have to put in practice if you want to become successful and develop your academic skills.

Here are some general habits that you should adopt if you want to be successful students according to Anderson (2009): attend most of your lectures, tutorials and labs, ask questions; keep up with assignments; know your degree requirements; use the resources available to you; and take care and control of your physical and mental wellbeing.

The speaking and listening skills are the most common in daily communication so here we present some tips to improve them.

Listening skills

There are several ways to learn by listening such as lectures, seminar discussions, and also recorded material. Learning by listening will help you to make sense of what you are hearing and keep in your mind the most important. However, you cannot keep in their mind everything so, you have to take notes, this helps you to concentrate on what the speaker is saying. Taking notes will promote a deeper understanding of the content of the lecture.

According to Barrass (2002):

listening to a lecture, looking at words written on a black board or at other visual aids, taking a critical interest, and recording carefully selected and well organized note, are all aids to active study. These activities help students to maintain attention, to pick out key ideas, to recognize and orderly pattern in what is being said, to learn and to remember (p. 48).

The notes you make are for you, so you can reduce the languages by shortening words and sentences. The notes you make act, in effect, as a kind of extension to the memory capacity of your mind (Northedge, 2007).

Speaking Skills

Many courses at higher education require students to give oral presentation and when they attend classes they are expected not just to listen, but to actively contribute to the class by answer questions, ask some questions to the teacher, make comments and give opinions.

To demonstrate the skills of communication you, as an student, are expected to be able to listen closely, discuss and make presentations (QCA, 2002, p.21 quoted by Northedge, 2007 p. 157-158).Giving a good presentation involves reading background material, leading the discussion, preparing visual aids, choosing a topic and seminar paper.

To participate actively in-class discussion you should pre-read and base on it prepare some questions and take notes during the class.

References:
Northedge, A. (1994). The good study guide. Great Britain: The Open University.
Barrass, R. (2002). Study! a guide to effective learning, revision, and examination tecniques. Abington, Oxon: Routledge.
Northedge, A. (2007). The good study guide. Great Britain: The Open University.
Anderson, L. (2009). Educational and Planning Resources: Characteristics of a Successful Student. Washington: Peninsula College.

Simsek, A. ( 2010) Learning Strategies of Successful and Unsuccessful University Students. Contemporary Educational technology. Vol. 1(1),pp. 36-45