Find tips from our tutors on improving academic success.
General Advice
- Pay attention to instructions from the professor
- Treat school like a job; Work and review daily with breaks
Exam Tips
- Annotate the questions on the test (underline and circle words) so that you ensure you understand the whole question and make sure you are answering what it is asking.
- Complete the test questions you are most confident in first while marking over ones you are unsure about to answer at the end if you have time left. This will help with budgeting time efficiently.
Study Tips
- Write a list of questions down after looking over all the notes and slides from the class, then go to office hours and ask all the questions on your list to the professor.
- If you do not understand a scientific concept or process, find a good video on it and watch it.
- Try to remember examples/analogies provided by the teacher (or your own) of certain scientific concepts because they can really help you understand a whole system/concept in an easy and accessible way.
- Use memory shortcuts: if you have to memorize a list of 3 concepts, remember one word/phrase as a memory cue for each list item.
Note-Taking
- Save the slides and focus on writing what the professor is saying instead of information on slides.
- Leave gaps in notes to fill in later of information from slides or any points you missed that the professor said.
- Compare your notes with a classmate and fill in any gaps.