Articles
Becoming a new student
A Dubai-based English lecturer spills the secrets to becoming a successful survivor during the first term at college.
- By Robert Leslie Fielding
- Published: 00:00 October 1, 2005
- Get enough sleep
- Avoid coping mechanisms that don't work such as cigarettes
- Eat well but not too much
- Have check-ups regularly at the doctor and the dentist
- Get up early - don't go to bed too late
- Take plenty of exercise - swimming, playing basketball or football
- Attend everything (meetings, classes, lectures, tutorials, seminars)
- Take notes
- Keep your notes filed - carry a file in a bag
- Keep a diary (enter forward and back)
- Don't be late (get into the habit of being punctual - it will serve you well throughout your life)
- Do the required reading but don't be put off by long reading lists - nobody expects you to read everything on it - be selective
- Take books out of the library on a regular basis and read them
- Don't misplace library books or lend them out - library fines can be expensive
- Don't worry if you couldn't write down every word your lecturer said - better to read what he has been reading to inform yourself of the content of his lecture
Robert Leslie Fielding on how to be a successful survivor during the first term at college
About this time of year, thousands of young, hopeful people begin a new life as students at universities and colleges. Most will have just completed the high school stage of their education, and some will have just finished their ‘gap-year'.
Dealing with anxiety
For the vast majority, it will be the first time they have spent any time away from home, and for most, this time is a testing one - they will be anxious, worried, but they will also be excited.
To get through this time - not just to get through it, but to enjoy life at university, and to succeed, there are many different things they need to be aware of.
The first of these is that any feelings of anxiety they are experiencing are entirely normal - that everyone goes through it. However, being told to deal with it is simply not enough. How do you deal with it, and what is "it" anyway.
Finding good friends
Let's start with a truth - everybody feels the need to be accepted and valued by others, but that can be taken too far.
Finding friends is vital to getting through this exacting, demanding time, but so is finding the right kinds of friends, too - in fact it's more important - much more important.
In groups of strangers, there are always some who will stand out - become leaders, and there are some who learn to accept different roles. It's important right from the start that you be yourself - don't overdo friendliness, but don't be unnecessarily unfriendly either.
The people who will eventually become your truest, best friends are those who learn to accept you as you are, not as you might present yourself if you are trying too hard, or if you are too wary of others.
Give yourself time to get to know people.
Here in the UAE, young people probably find their level quicker than in other countries. Teenagers here will have all the normal bonds young people elsewhere have, plus they have a strong sense of national identity.
So far so good - getting on with others - finding good friends shouldn't be too difficult, and a good friend at university invariably becomes a lifelong friend too.
Getting down to studying
Remembering why you are at university though is very, very important. Now it's time to really focus on why you are here - some of it will be difficult but it will be rewarding too, if you keep your head.
I talked earlier about enjoying your time at college or university - now I want to talk about that enjoyment and how to increase your share of it without giving anything up to achieve it.
First of all, let's realise that being happy is not the same thing as getting thrills. Here you might think I don't want you to enjoy yourself. That's not it. I want you to enjoy your time studying. I enjoyed it. I want you to enjoy it too. Students who are happy and enjoying life find it easier to learn.
I want you to focus on your subjects - on what your lecturers want you to do, and I want you to continue to focus on those things, even when you're not in class. That's the secret - the difference between an A-student and the rest - A-students are focused right through the course, others let up before the end.
Really, it's as simple as that - focus, plus one more ingredient - effort. The more you put into your time at university, the more you will get out of it - not just in terms of exam results - though you will certainly do that, too - but also in terms of how much you learn, and that's going to determine a lot of things in the rest of your life.
Getting involved, getting interested - doing your work - doing the best you possibly can is the way to avoiding the circle of guilt and ultimately failure that not working hard invariably leads to.
Keeping up, not catching up
Let's go further into this. First of all, you don't do your homework, you get asked for your work, you haven't done it, teacher gets a bit edgy with you, you start to dislike teacher, Understandable - who wants to be told off?
You go home feeling sorry for yourself - you tell yourself it's the teacher's fault - he isn't a good teacher. Why should you work for a bad teacher - you're not going to - you don't do the next piece of homework - the whole cycle starts again.
The end of these cycles of behaviour is you failing your exams and not enjoying anything up to then - or afterwards either!
Avoiding real problems and potential problems: empowerment for teacher and student
Face up to the fact that most students encounter problems, particularly at the early stages in their lives at university.
Ignoring those problems is not the way to progress - they won't always go away unless you do something to change the situation that is causing them.
You can create a table that is a way of fixing what you, the student, think you need help with. It involves you thinking about the problem - and that means being honest, and it involves your teacher or mentor, who must also be honest.
First of all, you identify the course you are having difficulty with, then add your thoughts next to the headings such as things I can fix.
Next, you hand in the table to your teacher/mentor, who fills in hie or her thoughts on what you have written.
Then comes the all important meeting in which you thrash out the real nature of your problem as you both see it.
Both you and your teacher must agree on a course of action and then sign it and date it, adding a date for the predicted outcome of the changes. In this way, something good to take away from your course should emerge.
Of course, a scheme like the one suggested here requires the cooperation of both members of staff and students.
However, schemes like this one are acting as a ‘wake-up call' in many American universities, where freshmen students are being given much more attention (‘front-loading resources') than they used to be given.
Education is for you
And do enjoy the one time in your life when everything is centred around you - when everything is for you - because that's what education is all about - it's not about teachers, it's about you, it's about bettering your life. You want to do that, don't you? I thought so.
Good luck.
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