It won't work.
Many of those tools you have used to navigate school up to this point aren't going to work. I am here to warn you that you need to be careful because you think you have lots of tools in your tool box, but many of them simply won't work here.
Take reading, for example. You all know how to read of course, but when you read and what you read have been based upon assumptions that won't work here. In high school, many classes may have required very little reading and many of those that did have reading, you could figure out pretty easily just what you needed to review, and you could skim over that the night before the exam and memorize a few things and that would suffice. The teacher often went over the reading and by paying attention, it was easy to tell what needed review. But that won't be enough here.
First of all, there is a whole lot more reading to do and pretty much every professor will expect you to read before you come to class. The lectures and classroom discussion will not be a review of the reading, but an extension of the reading; the reading is a starting point. If you haven't read, many times the lecture will be impossible to follow. And these professors will not be satisfied with memorization. Oh, sure, there will be the occasional date or name or definition that you need to put to memory, but what they will expect is synthesis of data, application of concepts, summarization of details -- in short, critical thinking. If you do not read ahead of class and participate in class discussions, this will be very, very difficult for you.
And then there is the tool in your arsenal that is "extra credit." If you don't do as well as you thought you would on a paper or exam, you can always ask the professor if you can do a report or a project for extra credit and that will get you over the poor grade. Lots of teachers in high school may have allowed it, so perhaps these faculty members will to. Nope. It won't work. You have to study and work hard all semester and make the grades all the way through the course. There isn't any report or diorama you can do to inflate your performance. Your work is what will decide your grade.
Of course, a tool we have seen far too often called upon is the end of semester pleading. Now, I really don't know if that has ever worked much in high school, but this is something we have seen increasingly in college. A student gets to the end of the course, has not studied very hard, hasn't read as thoroughly as he should, and so comes to the professor's door the last week and does two things. First off, he provides a list of excuses why his work did not come up to speed. Car troubles, homesickness, girlfriend problems, family travails of all sorts have prevented you from performing as well as you might have.
Secondly, the student throws herself on the mercy of the professor and, in a sense, tries to make the student's future the responsibility of the professor. It goes something like this: If you don't give me a B, I won't get into the nursing program and my lifelong dream of being a nurse will be destroyed and my children I will have someday will never know how much I wanted this and we may all be starving to death and this will cause me terrible stress that will lead to my driving poorly and then I will run over my dog that I have had for 18 years. You wouldn't do that to me, would you?
Well, of course not, but keep in mind, the professor is not grading you or your life dreams or, for that matter, even what you know. The professor grades your work in her class -- nothing more and nothing less. If you don't do the work, you will not get the grade and you might as well go ahead and say goodbye to Fido.
So what will work? First off, attending class works. I know it is tempting when you don't have your parents around to suppose that you can miss class and sometimes the professors don't take attendance and you can just sleep in or go do something with your friends. You can get the notes from someone, maybe, and go to class next time and ask, "Did we do anything important last class? I wasn't here and wondered if we did anything that will be on the test."
It won't work.
The answer is "Yes. We did something important and it will be on the test." You have to be in class to understand the material and to participate in discussions. The questions you have about the readings cannot be answered unless you are there. Always remember -- the only dumb question is the one you never got an answer to. Go to class and participate. You will benefit from it, I promise. And you will learn an awfully lot.
Another tool you have at your disposal that will work is to revise and upgrade your study skills. Taking notes from involved lectures, outlining the texts, anticipating and writing mock essay question exams, setting up study groups -- these are just a few of the skills you need to learn to be successful in college. As I mentioned before, mere memorization simply will not be enough to make you successful in college. You will need to practice critical thinking study skills to be successful. You will need to learn just how to go about writing a college-level theme. You have to know how to apply the proper formula to the algebraic problem to achieve the correct answer. There are a number of skills that may be new to you. But you can learn these skills. And, the good news is we have folks here who are prepared to help you learn these skills and many more. Our counseling center offers workshops on study skills. The Student Success Center will open soon and provide you with a great many resources for improving your skills and thus improving your chances for success, including tutoring in math and writing and sciences and more. Use these resources and you will be more successful. We want you to be successful and that is why we offer these resources to you.
Along with these enhanced study skills, you need to develop your time management abilities. If you wait until the weekend before the paper is due to begin working on it, it won't work. If you delay studying for the midterm until the night before and try to stay up all night cramming, it won't work. College is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you do not break the tasks of the semester into more manageable parts, it will overwhelm you and you will find yourself with no time to complete the work and to complete it in a satisfactory way.
Now, we have all heard people sometimes say that they work better under stress, but that simply is not true. We sometimes aren't motivated to complete our work until we are stressed by the calendar or some other pressure, but it is almost invariably
not our best work. Stretch out the tasks, break them into smaller pieces, and the work will be your better work and you will enjoy college much, much more. Underlying these recommendations to you is the concept of responsibility.
Perhaps the most important tool you can employ to be successful at Gordon
College (or anywhere else, for that matter) is to recognize that you are responsible for the quality of your work, and thus for the evaluation of that work, that is, the grade you receive. Once you accept that you are responsible, all of the other tools that do work will come into play. You will study harder and more diligently because you know that is how you will be successful.
And one last item: going to college is one of the most fulfilling and rewarding times of your life. You have the opportunity to learn far more than you ever dreamed you would learn, to meet people from all over the world, and to make friends you will have the rest of your life. Take advantage of these times. Get involved by attending extracurricular events like sporting events and plays and recitals. Join a club. Participate in the SGA. If you let yourself, you will find that the college years really are some of the best years of your life and you will go forward as a transformed person, and that WILL work.