College Help

College can be a confusing and scary time, what with meeting new people, maybe living away from home, and having to worry about grades. Grades are one of the most important but most frightening parts of college—if your grades go down, you can…well, nothing really bad will happen, but still. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to make sure that your grades stay up.

1. Don’t Study Too Much

Many people think that studying ensures good grades. Actually, the opposite is true. Overstudying is worse than understudying—if you don’t study enough, you can waste time is ways you enjoy, but overstudying just eats up your day. The best thing is to take a quick look over the chapter—if that doesn’t suffice, you probably don’t understand it and probably never will.

2. Establish Good Relations with Your Professors

Your typical college professor isn’t exactly good time Charlie—who really wants to hang out with college professors? Nobody, that’s who, so they typically spend a lot of time reading dusty journals and wearing tweed (what is tweed, anyway?). This means that you are probably cooler than you instructor—you kinda have to be—so use that to your advantage. A simple “have a nice day” will brighten up his or her day, and will come in handy at grading time.

3. Ask Questions

Notice I don’t say ask good questions—just ask a question here and there so the professor knows you’re not asleep. They like students who seem to be paying attention, and that’s a surefire way to boosting your grades.

And if you have to text during class, be subtle about it.

4. Negotiate

You’ll find that negotiation is an important life skill. Too many people take a hard line, my-way-or-the-highway approach, which is bad. So when you get a test or paper back, look for instances where the instructor could have given you more points, and ask him about them. The worst that can happen is that he says no, and he’ll probably feel a bit guilty for doing so. Your next test will probably be graded a bit easier, so consider your negotiations an investment.

5. Be Smart

If you’re not really smart, you’re probably wasting your time at college. Look around you—who among your friend has an IQ lower than yours? If you can’t answer that question immediately, drop out immediately and get a job ditchdigging or whatever it is dropouts do.