12 My Advice

As of December 12, 2019, I will be finished with my freshman year of college and my first semester at the University of Pikeville. There are many things that I have learned since beginning the semester in August to the end of the semester now. I could talk about how to make friends or how to live in a dorm; however, I chose to talk about my academic experience, as I believe it has been an area that I have learned the most about.

I had five courses this semester. I had four classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, two classes on Fridays, and one class on Tuesdays and Thursday. My schedule was not the worst schedule, but it was still not easy getting adapted to how college classes are set up. Furthermore, each course I set up differently. I realized how much different college was the first week of this past semester. In other words, I was completely confused.

Once the first week was over, I began getting into a routine of where and when my class were. The first week is what I consider an easy week because most of the Professors go over their syllabi and explain how the course is set up and the grading scale. After the first week, most professors begin teaching the material they listed in the syllabus. The second week is when I realized college is not a joke and should not be treated as one.

My advice is too keep up with the work you are assigned each day and week. I consistently completed my work long before the deadline, at the beginning of the semester. I found this to be the exciting time because college is so new, and I thought I had every thing together. However, things started getting harder.

I slowly started getting behind on my course work. I found myself rushing to write papers right at the deadline. This made things very difficult, and I was not able to thoroughly learn the material. I somehow managed to keep my grades decently high, but it was getting extremely hard. Eventually, I came to the realization: my grades were going to start dropping. I made a commitment to myself that I would prioritize my life, with my academic work being on top.

I found that once I made my academic work the most important thing in my life, my grades began to rise. I had a much easier time learning the material and doing well on quizzes and exams. This helped tremendously when finals came. Finals are hard, but if you keep your grades high during the semester, you will have more leeway with grades on final exams.

My advice is to keep your academic work up. Do not get behind, as I can tell you firsthand, your grades will suffer if you fail to prioritize your academic work. Remember, the better you do during the semester, the more room you have with your final exam grades.