If you are reading this and you are past your first or second year as the case may be then you may be only able to use these tips to enhance your grades and not a first class. Getting a first class starts from your first year in the university, in fact your first test or exam goes some way to determine how you finish up
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1. Discover Your Study Pattern: For many of the bright students I knew in school some never seemed to attend classes all the time. They skipped classes when they could but made up with reading intensively. You may have to discover if you work best by assimilating all the lecturer has to say (even though most times they say little or nothing!) or by reading up all the notes and approved texts even if you don’t make it to class often.
2. Read Past Questions:The tertiary institutions of today in Nigeria sadly have turned students into little more than cramming and memorizing machines and you will do well to study the question pattern of your lecturers. From experience many of them follow a predictable pattern of setting exam questions. This is why if you get hold of a particular lecturer’s past examination questions on a particular course and go through it religiously you stand a better chance of passing the
course very well. Even when the lecturer changes his questions every year you can get useful insights to his style of examination questioning that will help you better prepare for that particular course.
3. Take Tests Seriously: This was one of the chief things that affected my grades badly in college. I always never took tests and assignments seriously and had to often rely on examinations to pass courses. In most Nigerian universities and polytechnics as well as overseas higher institutions tests and assignments account for almost one third of the entire marks for every course or module you take. Taking them seriously will ease the pressure on you when examinations come.
4. Plan Your Day: Just like in every other thing such as business, becoming successful etc you have to have a good idea of what your day looks once it is day break. If you have your time planned you do not need to be an introverted, bad tempered bookworm to pass out with flying colours from university. You can play and work hard if you have your daily and possibly a vague weekly plan to follow.
5. Play Hard, Work Hard: This follows the advice above. Plan to play well and read hard. Some of the smartest people I knew in the university were very outgoing and played whenever they could. Some of the smart guys in class actually looked like they never had time to work hard at their books but
getting close to them you disocver they had times set aside when they never did any other thing except read.
6. Hook and Move With Smart Colleagues: The saying goes that to be rich you don’t move with poor people. You will hardly learn anything smart about money and riches by doing so. The same goes for you if you aim to graduate magna cum laude from the university. Make friends with the high flyers and study how they read. When you imbibe the confidence of such people you suddenly find yourself performing excellently well academically.
7. If You Can Attend the Classes: Finally you may hear fairy tales of very smart students who rarely attended classes yet were top of the class. In terms of grade I was in the top 1% in my class during my first year at the university. Then from my second year distractions came (not that they are not good for one’s all round development) and I was no longer able to manage my time which meant I skipped classes. It got worse and then the grades fell steadily. The truth is while no one graduated with first class from my class of Electronics Engineering the four or five that makes very high grades attended almost 98% of all the classes from the first to the last year.
NOTE: In today’s world it becomes clearer that making a wonderful grade (while it helps in the job search) does not really give much advantage as the world has got more competitive and employers are on the lookout for more real life
practical qualities on business and organisational challenges from prospective employers. Gone are the days first class graduates walked straight into juicy job positions. You still have to fight for everything you get in the world.
Nice
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