Advice for a College Freshman
Advice for a College Freshman
- Never let your classes get in the way of your education.
- You can learn as much from other students as from the faculty.
- When you find professors you can really learn from, take every course that they offer.
- Read the forwards and introductions to your textbooks so that you have a better understanding of the author’s perspective and mission.
- Read a good encyclopedia article on what’s covered in each of your classes before taking the class. You’ll have a broader perspective. Web searches will help do the same.
- Ask yourself why your professor included each item on the syllabus.
- Look for the human-interest stories behind the concepts you’re learning.
- Learn how to do research using a library, the web, and other sources. You’ll be researching one thing or another for the rest of your life.
- Learn statistics and how to lie with them so you’ll know when others are using statistics to lie to you.
- The unexamined life is not worth living, according to Socrates; so give yourself time to ask deep questions and search for answers.
- Get off campus at least once a week. The world is a bigger place.
- Read a daily newspaper or web-based news feed every day to stay informed on current events.
- Try everything you’re interested insing in the choir, play an intramural sport, edit copy for the student newspaper, sculpt some clay. Help build a house or teach kids how to read. Just try it.
- Spend time getting to know members of the opposite or relevant sex as human beings first. The rest of your education will follow.
- Avoid pulling back-to-back all-nighters if at all possible.
Copyright (c) Dave Schroeder 2002
posted by Cogit8tor at 2:19 PM
5 Comments:
1. Wash your sheets or you'll get scabies. Not from personal experience)
2. If you see a cute athlete with busted knee, ask them if they've hurt thier ACL. The Antierior Cruciate Ligament is one of the more sensitive parts of the knee and you will likely be right and look smart. Even if you're not, hey, you've started a conversation.
3. You'll be able to drink all your life from now on, so you don't need to do all your drinking at once tomorrow.
Good list.
Good for the rest of life.
1. If it moves don't wear it.
2. There is no such thing as a perfect school.
---Mike M.
1. Your teachers are human too. Some remember when they were freshmen; they have lived to tell about it.
2. Avoid an "us/them" or confrontational mentality, even as you seek and question.
I didn't mean you can't learn from your teachers -- it's just by the time you get to college you end up learning *more* from your fellow students -- so stay open to that mode of learning. Thanks -- Dave
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