Doing well in freshman year

[kw18]

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I'm a pre-med freshman and I'm quite nervous about college academics. I'm taking Cell Biology, Calculus, and Philosophy of Science. I'm also taking a first-year seminar.

How can I do well in my first year at college? How many hours per day should I devote to studying/doing work?

 

[jtd2081]

Everyone is different. Study what you need to know the material that is being tested. If you are that worry visit your academic center to learn studying skills to help you succeed. It is too early in the first semester to be this worried lol. Calm down and take it day by day.

 

[DrHart]

The best advice I was given as a freshman was to treat academics like a full time job. For me, I tried to put in 8 hours a day every day (including lectures, readings, homework, studying, etc.). As you get used to it, you learn to be more efficient with your time spent studying and learning... so eventually you'll be able to devote less time to get through what you need to do.
Once you have your academics stable and on track, branch out and fill the rest of your time with ECs (little by little). Just my 2c!

 

[Kpw101]

Pulled this from another thread I posted on:

I've gotten a few friends to start scoring high marks on their exams and this is general advice that I found works for everyone:

1) Try your best to pay attention and learn everything while in lecture
2) Review your lecture notes (you don't have to try and study every detail but just look it over at least) the day you have your lecture
3) Start studying way before your exam. I'm talking 2-3 weeks via little chunks in a day.
4) Look over your material twice.
5) After you looked over your material twice do as many practice problems as you can or mental exercises leading up to the exam. (Mental exercises include making flow diagrams from memory, index cards, writing out reactions from memory. Anki is also an amazing resource for mental exercise of your material.)

Anything other than the guidelines above I feel changes from student to student. Personally I study my lecture notes by reading it over and over again + making diagrams. Others like to rewrite theirs. Others like to listen to recordings. Find what works for you and you should see improvement!

 

[kw18]

The best advice I was given as a freshman was to treat academics like a full time job. For me, I tried to put in 8 hours a day every day (including lectures, readings, homework, studying, etc.). As you get used to it, you learn to be more efficient with your time spent studying and learning... so eventually you'll be able to devote less time to get through what you need to do.
Once you have your academics stable and on track, branch out and fill the rest of your time with ECs (little by little). Just my 2c!

Yeah this is good advice. I'm only going to do one or two ECs this semester and try to focus on academics. Once I adjust, I'll know more about how much time I should be studying, etc.