I was least prepared for how many exams there would be. I’ve always heard about how stressful midterms and finals were but coming from a high school that didn’t really have midterms or finals, it was shocking and kind of scary to see how heavily my grade relied on my exams. For prospective students and incoming freshmen, they should know that most of their classes will have multiple exams and quizzes throughout the semester and their final may or may not be cumulative. In high school, I rarely studied because everything came relatively easy to me. So going into college, I knew that I couldn’t employ this same strategy. I pretty much had no idea how to study effectively, and I’m still learning which studying methods work best for me.
I was also least prepared for how lecture-heavy most classes are. In high school, there was a nice balance between lectures and in-classroom activities. Looking back, I see how this helped me learn material much easier which is probably what contributed to my lack of studying. In these kinds of classes, the learning is mostly up to you and seems that it can kind of seem like more of you trying to memorize everything instead of trying to understand the material. With how quick the semesters go by and how packed they are, there isn’t much time to get behind or take time away from other classes to understand material that I didn’t really comprehend at first. This caused me to “wing” a lot of things in classes that weren’t necessarily a “priority” and caused me to be not as prepared as I’d like to be for some exams and quizzes.
Now I’ll address some ways prospective students and incoming freshmen can prepare to address these issues. When deciding what classes to take, they should make sure to check websites like “PlanetTerp” to get a basic understanding of the class and the typical outcomes. “PlanetTerp” is useful because it is up to date and shows grade distribution, ratings of professors, and gives a brief description of the class. For the most part, when it comes to how many exams each class has, it mostly depends on the class. Most websites probably won’t give these details but asking students who have taken the class can give insight on what to expect. From my experience, I’ve noticed that most science and math classes have at least three exams with weekly or bi-weekly quizzes.
To prepare for the more lecture-heavy classes, prospective students and incoming freshmen can prepare for these by figuring out which note-taking method would be most effective for the class and for themselves. Some classes may require more memorization than having to understand the material to implement it in exams. They should also come up with a studying schedule that includes the time they’ll also work on the assignments for that class. The last thing would be to ask other students for advice on how to handle the class and see if that class is worth their effort or not. To get the most out of their classes, they should choose classes that interest them so that studying and doing assignments isn’t too tedious.