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Jive and Maki's Guide to Enjoying College
- Thread starter jive1
- Start date
+1. In most cases you can take some CLEP tests before you even start classes, thus saving you from many hours of boring lecture. I wish I'd have known when I was in college.
Pass/fail is your friend. Similar course I did it with was Intermediate Macro Econ course by some senile guy who couldn't see if you raised your hand. Nice guy, but not all there. Got a D, but when I switched majors and it wasn't a required course, I took it again as a pass/fail with a different instructor. I went to class about 4 or 5 times, and got another D. But, this time it did not go against my GPA. Raised it from a 3.2 to a 3.44.
Community college is also useful for saving bucks, as well as giving you more freedom in class schedules and class requirements. Most colleges allow concurent enrollment, which lets you take classes at another school that count towards credit at your college. For example, my university had a technical writing course that was always filled up, and met MWF at 8 AM. I took the same course at a nearby community college at 6PM once a week, and had it count towards my degree at my 4 year college. The course was easier as well. Plus, this gives you another pool of members of the opposite sex to mingle with.
While most of my Junior College courses were for EMT or kind of random things. Those sexy junior college chicks loved the University dudes. You're already at where a lot of them want to go. Remember that. Use it to your advantage.
Let's talk about studying and classes. Part of the college experience is to learn something, so get's begin here. It's hard to have fun in college if you flunk out of it.
Rule #1 - Always attend class. The only exception to this rule is for classes taken pass/fail that don't have an attendance requirement. Even if you sit around and do the crossword puzzle, scope out chicks, or take a nap you at least have a chance to subliminally learn something. Even if you just done 16 bong hits after being hungover from the night before, by attending class you at least have a chance to retain 5-10% of the material, which is better than nothing. From that 10%, you might be able to configure and reason an additional 10-20%, upping you to 30%, thus leaving you 70% percent to catch up on as opposed to 100%. Plus, you paid alot of money to use their heat, air conditioning, facilities, space, etc. so use it. And what is class anyway, 3-5 hours a day? That's a cake part-time job.
TIP: Sometimes it sucks to have an 8AM class. I know because I only took a class before noon twice in my college career. Here's the workaround. Look around at the class schedule and see if there is a different section of the same class at a time more convenient for you and just attend it. Sometimes it's even taught by the same teacher, and even if it isn't, the cirriculum can be the same. It's really easy to do in those auditorium classes. Just go to your assigned class to sign in on the first day, and then just go there for the tests afterwards. In the meantime attend the class that's a better schedule for you.
Rule #2 - Don't leave campus until you've done your homework. I had 4 different roommates flunk out of college from too much partying. I partied right along with them, but they never saw me study. They always thought I didn't, but I did. I just didn't spend as much time, nor had to. I never really crammed, thus I had ample time to party. I partied hard right through finals. Crap, some of my best times were during finals week.
Here's how I did it. When class was over, I did all my readings and such on campus. I wouldn't do it when I got home, because there would be just too much distraction and temptation. Seriously, it's just reading about 20-60 pages, which I could get done in an hour or two. Plus being on campus meant opportunities to meet members of the opposite sex, get in on a game of frisbee or hackysack, etc. Then when I got home, I was free to party like a rock star.
TIP: Library is a cool place to meet members of the opposite sex, but you can't always talk. Use it for quiet reading if needed, but sit near more mingle friendly areas like the computers if that's you want to do. But, if you'd like to slack a little, do your reading in the student union, square, whatever. Nice spot to read, people watch, and slack afterwards.
Rule #3 - Mark the hell out of your text book. After my freshman year, I never used a notebook. I wrote all my notes in the margins of my textbook, and highlighted the crap out of it. You paid alot for your text books, and you aren't gonna get crap out of them when you sell it back, so mark the hell out of it.
When listening to a lecture, highlight the stuff in your book that corresponds to what the lecturer is talking about. If there's notes to be taken, write them in the margins. Preferably, you write your notes to correlate to topics in the book. When you're reading after class, highlight the key points. Then when it's test time, you just glance at your textbook and see all the key points and shave hours off your study time.
TIP: Now that you have marked up your book, sell it to some slacker who is taking the class after you for more than you would make from the book resellers. It has notes in it, so it's a little more valuable.
When my peers would ask me how the hell I managed to party and still get good grades, I gave them all these three rules and it has worked for every single one that followed them.
Rule #1 - Always attend class. The only exception to this rule is for classes taken pass/fail that don't have an attendance requirement. Even if you sit around and do the crossword puzzle, scope out chicks, or take a nap you at least have a chance to subliminally learn something. Even if you just done 16 bong hits after being hungover from the night before, by attending class you at least have a chance to retain 5-10% of the material, which is better than nothing. From that 10%, you might be able to configure and reason an additional 10-20%, upping you to 30%, thus leaving you 70% percent to catch up on as opposed to 100%. Plus, you paid alot of money to use their heat, air conditioning, facilities, space, etc. so use it. And what is class anyway, 3-5 hours a day? That's a cake part-time job.
TIP: Sometimes it sucks to have an 8AM class. I know because I only took a class before noon twice in my college career. Here's the workaround. Look around at the class schedule and see if there is a different section of the same class at a time more convenient for you and just attend it. Sometimes it's even taught by the same teacher, and even if it isn't, the cirriculum can be the same. It's really easy to do in those auditorium classes. Just go to your assigned class to sign in on the first day, and then just go there for the tests afterwards. In the meantime attend the class that's a better schedule for you.
Rule #2 - Don't leave campus until you've done your homework. I had 4 different roommates flunk out of college from too much partying. I partied right along with them, but they never saw me study. They always thought I didn't, but I did. I just didn't spend as much time, nor had to. I never really crammed, thus I had ample time to party. I partied hard right through finals. Crap, some of my best times were during finals week.
Here's how I did it. When class was over, I did all my readings and such on campus. I wouldn't do it when I got home, because there would be just too much distraction and temptation. Seriously, it's just reading about 20-60 pages, which I could get done in an hour or two. Plus being on campus meant opportunities to meet members of the opposite sex, get in on a game of frisbee or hackysack, etc. Then when I got home, I was free to party like a rock star.
TIP: Library is a cool place to meet members of the opposite sex, but you can't always talk. Use it for quiet reading if needed, but sit near more mingle friendly areas like the computers if that's you want to do. But, if you'd like to slack a little, do your reading in the student union, square, whatever. Nice spot to read, people watch, and slack afterwards.
Rule #3 - Mark the hell out of your text book. After my freshman year, I never used a notebook. I wrote all my notes in the margins of my textbook, and highlighted the crap out of it. You paid alot for your text books, and you aren't gonna get crap out of them when you sell it back, so mark the hell out of it.
When listening to a lecture, highlight the stuff in your book that corresponds to what the lecturer is talking about. If there's notes to be taken, write them in the margins. Preferably, you write your notes to correlate to topics in the book. When you're reading after class, highlight the key points. Then when it's test time, you just glance at your textbook and see all the key points and shave hours off your study time.
TIP: Now that you have marked up your book, sell it to some slacker who is taking the class after you for more than you would make from the book resellers. It has notes in it, so it's a little more valuable.
When my peers would ask me how the hell I managed to party and still get good grades, I gave them all these three rules and it has worked for every single one that followed them.
This is sage advice. However, with that said, I can tell that Jive was a much better student than I ever was.
I also lived in a different geographical area than Jive, so I had a lot of temptations. I lived right on the sand in Newport beach. I would check out the surf from my front window. Sometimes, I would wake up and see perfect 6-7 foot waves right in front of my house. Those were days that I would skip a few classes. My college career was split between two stages. When I was swimming and when I was not swimming. When I was swimming, I would occasionally blow off practice and a few morning classes for a good surf session. But only classes where I had a buddy that could cover me for notes, or had a different section scheduled for a later time. When I was not swimming I would always schedule my classes for late morning early afternoon whenever possible. I followed Jive's tip maybe 80 percent of the time, but I always allowed an out for those days when the waves were cranking. However, I would never skip a class because I was hungover, or stoned. I would show up as is, even if I didn't take a single note, I'm at least on top of where the class is. However, I would never leave campus without getting a minimum of two hours of reading done (I was an English major. Much of my work consisted of reading).
I figured this one out, my third week into my college career. It was totally by accident. Believe it or not, there was a time when I was into blondes. I once followed a blonde sexy into her class, and discovered that it was the exact same class I had earlier that day. Same professor and everything. So I ended up staying in that class except for tests and necessary attendance, simply so I could hook up with that chick. We ended up dating on and off for a year after we got together while "studying" together.
Yes. Yes and Yes. I did the same thing. Library is a great place to meet sexy asian chicks by the way.
I did the exact same thing. Except I wouldn't sell it to some slacker, I gave it to a buddy. I guess this is where the crafty Korean business man comes into play.
I don't buy into the marking up your textbooks thing (if you wish to sell them). I see how useful writing in the margins are for note taking, but books don't fetch a lot of value for resale if you mark them up. I personally would get more learning from rewriting notes myself then trying to decipher someone's chicken scratches (ie my stat's teacher's notes). Everyone learns things differently so do what's most comfortable.
Some schools buy back used textbooks, but I'd check into the bookstore's policies before you decide to write heavily in them (unless you want to sell them independently). Even selling independently, you may find that you may be in tough for a sale if you wrote all over your textbooks. Or if you're a nerd like me, just keep your books. You never know when you want to review some Laplace transforms
.
Some schools buy back used textbooks, but I'd check into the bookstore's policies before you decide to write heavily in them (unless you want to sell them independently). Even selling independently, you may find that you may be in tough for a sale if you wrote all over your textbooks. Or if you're a nerd like me, just keep your books. You never know when you want to review some Laplace transforms
.
I don't buy into the marking up your textbooks thing (if you wish to sell them). I see how useful writing in the margins are for note taking, but books don't fetch a lot of value for resale if you mark them up. I personally would get more learning from rewriting notes myself then trying to decipher someone's chicken scratches (ie my stat's teacher's notes). Everyone learns things differently so do what's most comfortable.
Some schools buy back used textbooks, but I'd check into the bookstore's policies before you decide to write heavily in them (unless you want to sell them independently). Even selling independently, you may find that you may be in tough for a sale if you wrote all over your textbooks. Or if you're a nerd like me, just keep your books. You never know when you want to review some Laplace transforms
Sorry, but an Asian students notes are always worth more in the open market.
Sorry, but an Asian students notes are always worth more in the open market.
Was it a math text book then?
Yes, math text books would be worth more.
But for some reason, no-one would ever buy my notes from driver's ed.
Freshman chicks. [smiling reminiscently]. Fresh meat. The wiz is right. This can lead to a lot of deviant debauchery. I was an athlete on campus. I was a swimmer. So I remember I roaming campus a couple weeks earlier than most of the students. After tapping a couple of the swimmer chicks, suddenly there was an influx of girls. I couldn't believe it. The week before school started was called "O" week, simply because it was the zero week used to get moved into dorms and such. That "O" became known as the freshman girls mouth shape. Anyway in that first week I tapped a chick on a Monday, by being kind enough to help her move some stuff into her room, and then running out and getting some beer. Literally, she was naked by the time she snapped open her third beer. Beautiful. Later that week, it was a Thursday. I was lurking around a fellow swimmer's dorm, and down the hall a couple of chicks started hanging out. I hit both of them at the same time. The saturday night of 'O' resulted in a girl showing me "O" shapes. That first 'O' week resulted in a hat trick for me. It turned out to be my best results. A couple of years later, I hit a double, but, never matched that first week. So yes, listen to the Wiz. Don't act superior to the Freshman ladies. Take them under your wing and show them around.
How do you pull so much ass? I cant even think of how i could spit enough game to do this.
Here's another tip.
Know how you learn. Take note on how you learn. Everyone has a different learning style. Be aware of what kind of learner you are, and then accomodate yourself. Take a look at the bass. How do you learn a new song? Some people are visual learners. They watch a video. Others need tablature. Others need music. Others need to hear it. Or some combo of everything. Be aware of what works best for you in a class. Note taking wasn't always effective for me. Also different learning strategies will be better fit for different classes. Here are a few tips that helped me. I'm sure others will provide some good tips too.
Language Classes or Math Classes or classes that require a lot of memorization:
*Use flash cards. The creation of flash cards, and visually flipping through them is an excellent learning technique for that requires a lot of memorization
*study with a friend (preferably a sexy asian chick)
Just reading over stuff without adding the tactile piece will not help you memorize things
Large blocks of informational text:
Most textbooks, if you haven't figured it out are pretty damn organized. The chapter has a title. Each chapter has subtitles. And then, within each subtitle every paragraph introduces it's topic in the topic sentence. If you are studying for a test, a lot of professors will give you study guides, or give you hints on what to study. Use this textbook structure to create notes, flash cards, or whatever you need.
Another good strategy is to create questions that you think might end up on the test. Create questions and then answer them. I've done this and almost all of the questions I've created end up on the test.
Studying novels.
Pay attention to what the professor is talking about. This is your focus in the novel. Always read the whole novel. If you can't the bare MINIMUM is to read the parts that the professor is talking about along with the cliff notes. That way you get the gist of the story, as well as better knowledge of what the focus will be.
Essays:
This was my strong point. I got to the point where I could bang out an essay pretty quickly. First tip. Don't wait until the last minute. Get it done as soon as possible, then present it to the professor or sexy asian teacher aid, so they can give you feedback and notes on how to improve it. A rewritten essay is most always going to be an A. A first draft essay is most always not going to be an A.
Most of this is common sense, but I'll give you a structure that will work every time. It got me through college and many essays. It's called Bing Bang Bongo.
An essay is a formula and is exact and precise just like math. Of course, better writers will be able to hide the formula better than others, but everyone follows a formula. This formula is the MINIMUM for writing a good essay. You can expand it as needed. It also helps when cranking out a timed essay. But bing bang bongo works. I relied on it heavily for my thesis.
First off, it works for both paragraphs AND the overall structure of an essay.
Paragraph
The top triangle is your topic sentence. Notice how it is pointed down. That's because it's going to focus on our topic. The topic sentence ONLY has to introduce the topic. It doesn't have to tell a complete story. Just lay the topic out there. Kind of like aroot note. The first rectangle is your first supporting fact, reason, or supporting piece of evidence. Often, when referencing literature, this will be a quote. Incorporate the quote into a sentence. The circle is going to be your explanation. The explanation supports the fact, or reason. Don't get wrapped up into slamming a bunch more quotes into this section. This is repeated three times for a minimum of 8 sentences. Your conclusion should not only tie the facts together (so find facts, reasons, and support that are related), but it should also segue into the next paragraph. This structure will work for every paragraph of the essay.
Essay
Just like the paragraph, Bing Bang Bongo works for the essay too, except instead of each one of the shapes representing a sentence, each one of the shapes now represents a paragraph (with the exception of the circles which represent your three supporting facts for the paragraph). Notice how the first paragraph is an upside down triangle, this is because it's going to focus down to your point or THESIS of your essay which should always be toward the end of the intro paragraph.
Intro - The wide part of the paragraph represents your topic sentence. Introduce the topic of your essay. One, sometimes two sentences will suffice. Then you will introduce the topic of all three (or more) of your supporting paragraphs as couplets. The first sentence of the couplet will introduce your topic, the second sentence will briefly explain that topic (don't get to involved here - save that for the corresponding paragraph). Typically you will have three couplets, or six sentences, and your conclusion will be your point, your thesis, the reason why you are writing your essay. The intro paragraph serves as a map to the whole essay, and its purpose is to introduce the topic of your essay, all your supporting paragraphs and your thesis.
Supporting paragraphs. The first paragraph should correlate to the first topic you introduce in your introduction. Use three supporting facts as a minimum amount to support your topic.
Conclusion. Your conclusion is the bottom triangle. Make sure your re-introduce your topic. Revisit your supporting topics, and end it with a piece of wisdom that ties it all together. SUMMARIZING your essay is at best only a last resort.
Another tidbit. Always write in the present tense, and never use yourself as a pronoun in the essay unless specified to do so.
These are really basic things, but you'd be surprised at how many students don't know or use this stuff. Hope it helps.
Know how you learn. Take note on how you learn. Everyone has a different learning style. Be aware of what kind of learner you are, and then accomodate yourself. Take a look at the bass. How do you learn a new song? Some people are visual learners. They watch a video. Others need tablature. Others need music. Others need to hear it. Or some combo of everything. Be aware of what works best for you in a class. Note taking wasn't always effective for me. Also different learning strategies will be better fit for different classes. Here are a few tips that helped me. I'm sure others will provide some good tips too.
Language Classes or Math Classes or classes that require a lot of memorization:
*Use flash cards. The creation of flash cards, and visually flipping through them is an excellent learning technique for that requires a lot of memorization
*study with a friend (preferably a sexy asian chick)
Just reading over stuff without adding the tactile piece will not help you memorize things
Large blocks of informational text:
Most textbooks, if you haven't figured it out are pretty damn organized. The chapter has a title. Each chapter has subtitles. And then, within each subtitle every paragraph introduces it's topic in the topic sentence. If you are studying for a test, a lot of professors will give you study guides, or give you hints on what to study. Use this textbook structure to create notes, flash cards, or whatever you need.
Another good strategy is to create questions that you think might end up on the test. Create questions and then answer them. I've done this and almost all of the questions I've created end up on the test.
Studying novels.
Pay attention to what the professor is talking about. This is your focus in the novel. Always read the whole novel. If you can't the bare MINIMUM is to read the parts that the professor is talking about along with the cliff notes. That way you get the gist of the story, as well as better knowledge of what the focus will be.
Essays:
This was my strong point. I got to the point where I could bang out an essay pretty quickly. First tip. Don't wait until the last minute. Get it done as soon as possible, then present it to the professor or sexy asian teacher aid, so they can give you feedback and notes on how to improve it. A rewritten essay is most always going to be an A. A first draft essay is most always not going to be an A.
Most of this is common sense, but I'll give you a structure that will work every time. It got me through college and many essays. It's called Bing Bang Bongo.
An essay is a formula and is exact and precise just like math. Of course, better writers will be able to hide the formula better than others, but everyone follows a formula. This formula is the MINIMUM for writing a good essay. You can expand it as needed. It also helps when cranking out a timed essay. But bing bang bongo works. I relied on it heavily for my thesis.
First off, it works for both paragraphs AND the overall structure of an essay.
Paragraph
The top triangle is your topic sentence. Notice how it is pointed down. That's because it's going to focus on our topic. The topic sentence ONLY has to introduce the topic. It doesn't have to tell a complete story. Just lay the topic out there. Kind of like aroot note. The first rectangle is your first supporting fact, reason, or supporting piece of evidence. Often, when referencing literature, this will be a quote. Incorporate the quote into a sentence. The circle is going to be your explanation. The explanation supports the fact, or reason. Don't get wrapped up into slamming a bunch more quotes into this section. This is repeated three times for a minimum of 8 sentences. Your conclusion should not only tie the facts together (so find facts, reasons, and support that are related), but it should also segue into the next paragraph. This structure will work for every paragraph of the essay.
Essay
Just like the paragraph, Bing Bang Bongo works for the essay too, except instead of each one of the shapes representing a sentence, each one of the shapes now represents a paragraph (with the exception of the circles which represent your three supporting facts for the paragraph). Notice how the first paragraph is an upside down triangle, this is because it's going to focus down to your point or THESIS of your essay which should always be toward the end of the intro paragraph.
Intro - The wide part of the paragraph represents your topic sentence. Introduce the topic of your essay. One, sometimes two sentences will suffice. Then you will introduce the topic of all three (or more) of your supporting paragraphs as couplets. The first sentence of the couplet will introduce your topic, the second sentence will briefly explain that topic (don't get to involved here - save that for the corresponding paragraph). Typically you will have three couplets, or six sentences, and your conclusion will be your point, your thesis, the reason why you are writing your essay. The intro paragraph serves as a map to the whole essay, and its purpose is to introduce the topic of your essay, all your supporting paragraphs and your thesis.
Supporting paragraphs. The first paragraph should correlate to the first topic you introduce in your introduction. Use three supporting facts as a minimum amount to support your topic.
Conclusion. Your conclusion is the bottom triangle. Make sure your re-introduce your topic. Revisit your supporting topics, and end it with a piece of wisdom that ties it all together. SUMMARIZING your essay is at best only a last resort.
Another tidbit. Always write in the present tense, and never use yourself as a pronoun in the essay unless specified to do so.
These are really basic things, but you'd be surprised at how many students don't know or use this stuff. Hope it helps.
I really don't know how I did it. I kind of approach the chick as having needs just as much as I have needs. So I never put them on a pedestal. I'm pretty sure that many times they were using me just as much as I was using them. I was just an easy lay. I'm totally okay with being a man whore.
study hard party hard
study on campus...less distractions and you can check out chicks
don't miss class
stop by your professors office one a week....even if you don't have questions....make one up.....or ask questions you even know the answers to....if your prof knows your name and face your grades have a better chance of rounding the right way
study on campus...less distractions and you can check out chicks
don't miss class
stop by your professors office one a week....even if you don't have questions....make one up.....or ask questions you even know the answers to....if your prof knows your name and face your grades have a better chance of rounding the right way
