By the time this edition of the Iron Warrior hits the stands, many, if not all, of you will have gone through at least 1 midterm, gone through or are going through one of the absolute joys of engineering that is colloquially known as “Hell Week’. Or “Week-of-a-lot-of-exams-that-is-metaphorically-referred-to-a-real-bad-place-that-doesn’t-exist” for the agnostic folks.
It has been said ad nauseam before, but I’m here to tell you again: your marks will take a beating.
Of course, we’re all going to know someone in our class or in our apartment that will be able to get 103 percent on their midterms after not going to a single class or handing in a single assignment. And I’ll bet that that person isn’t you.
But the reason I bring this up is to let you know that that is all part and parcel to coming here to UW.
And it isn’t the end of the world.
Now, I’m not going to tell you to not try or to be complacent with barely passable grades (if it comes to that point). What I am trying to tell you is that when and if you get your midterm grades back and it isn’t what you wished it was going to be or if it wasn’t even close to what you would accept, relax.
It doesn’t mean you’re going to be screwed for the rest of the term.
Actually, the worst thing you could possibly do is to throw in the towel.
So what do you do when you get back your PHYS 115 midterm marks back and it better resembles a mediocre batting average than a school grade? What can you do to right the ship and steer yourself to the next semester and some really bad cliches?
The first thing I would recommend is to take a step back (figuratively, but actually taking a step back from where you are at this moment might help) and ask yourself a couple of basic questions:
1. Do you actually pay attention on class?
Before you answer this question, i think it’s safe to say that “being in class” and “paying attention in class” are 2 similar but totally different things. Going to class and then opening up your laptop to creep on Facebook for 50 minutes while occasionally putting your head up to see if the prof has noticed you being on Facebook is like jogging for 15 minutes to justify eating a BK King Deal: you’re guilt free but who are you really kidding?
2. Do you actually study outside of class?
There are many rules of thumbs and guidelines that exist in the anecdotal world that range from “for every hour of class you should study an additional 10 outside of it” to “what is a ‘study’ and why would I need to if I attend all my lectures?”. Besides the the fact that studying 10 hours for every hour of lecture would amount to way too much school and not enough cool, we are all different. The point is this: from the day school has started until now, could you count the number of homework and review hours you’ve had in 1 hand? 2 hands? If you’ve gone out more times than you’ve stayed in, time for a change. By the time this Iron Warrior edition hits the shelves, we will officially be at the halfway mark of the semester, and not being able to recollect the times you have sat down and studied is a surefire way to explain the grade that you got.
3. Are you studying effectively?
In addition to you asking if you’ve actually put in any effort so far this term, ask yourself if you’ve been able to take away anything from your study sessions. For your midterms, did you put in the time to study but still didn’t get the grade you thought you would? Then you have to ask yourself if the way you’ve been studying has been most effective for you. For some people, simply reading over the class notes is more than enough; for others, they might have to crank our page after page of sample questions before things start to sink in. Everyone is different, and if you think you’ve put in your study due diligence and it still isn’t giving you what you wanted, maybe it’s time to change how you approach studying a bit.
4. Have you been sleeping?
This is one of those ones that I know you’ve heard before: “make sure to sleep your full 8 hours of sleep every night blah blah blah…”. So ask yourself: have you been sleeping a good amount every night? It might not be exactly 8 hours every night, but have you been sleeping? Now, I’m no sleep doctor, but you won’t retain anything in class if you’re up all night playing Battlefield of Duty on the latest WiiStation720. You won’t. You need sleep to actually retain information. Just because you’re awake doesn’t mean you’re actually awake.
These questions are only a couple that you can ask yourself if you had a bad round of midterms. And if you had a good round, then great! Keep at it and get’r done.
But if not, don’t panic. You still have half a term left.
Just don’t keep doing what you’ve already been doing.
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