Tired of School

Ever thought independent study would be easy? It is. It’s easy to not go to class, it’s easy to not do the readings, it’s easy to procrastinate on the assignments, and it’s easy to go a full year and not complete the work. As I sit here I am finishing the independent study paper I am working on, I can’t help but think about how I had planned to finish it 2 weeks ago. Fine purveyors of this website know that I do not proof read my posts well. I do, however, take my time with my independent study classes. Here are some tips for taking an independent study class:

1. Make a plan of attack. It’s really easy to put off the independent study work. Make a plan on what you need to do to finish the work within 3 months of starting the class. You are more likely to finish your course if you do it up front.
2. Read the fine print. Sometimes you have to wait a couple weeks between turning in assignments, make sure you understand the rules before you wait too long to turn in assignments.
3. Don’t put off the tests. Most of these classes have 1 or 2 tests you have to take in person. I once did all the work on an independent study class except the final. I put off the final for about 6 months and ended up having to reread the whole textbook because I could not remember any of the material.
4. Do your best on the midterm. You should over study for the midterm because you do not know how tough the professor is on the tests. Since you will probably not know the professor, you can’t get a feel for how hard they are on tests. Make sure to read all the side bars in your assigned books. If it turns out you did not need to do all that work then you’ll know better for the final.
5. Check out the questions in the back of the chapters. If your tests include an essay question, then the best way to study is to prepare to get the questions in the back of chapters. The professor cannot expect you to know information from lectures so they are likely to take test questions directly from the text.
6. Learn all the words/definitions. As I so often say, if you know what the question is asking, then you can often come up with a good answer.

Good luck on your studies.

• Ok, most of you are back in school and going at it full force You’re catching up with friends, going for coffee, and perhaps some less savory things as well.
• One thing you probably don’t want to do is your school work. If your sitting at your computer and dreading finishing (or starting) your first paper, differential equation, or log for this semester then you’ve come to the right place. I’ve created 2 lists for you today: one to give you reasons to procrastinate more and one to motivate you to get busy. It’s up to you to decide which list is right for you.
• Reasons to procrastinate:

1. You need to practice for the upcoming dorm-wide Guitar Hero party.

2. You could work on your paper, but you should really order a book on the subject first.

3. Your room smells like a dead fish, you should clean it before you work.

4. A degree might not be for you, lucky you figured that out BEFORE you did all that schoolwork.

5. You’d do better with some sleep first.

6. You’d sleep better if you drained your energy first.

7. You’d drain your energy better if you went out with your friends.

8. Therefore, you’d do better on your work if you went out with your friends first.

9. You need to go buy an energy drink to concentrate.

10. You had an energy drink but now your too wired to concentrate.

• Reasons to get to work now:

1. You need to get the work out of the way so you are relaxed for the Guitar Hero party.

2. You are not allowed to read the rest of this list until you go finish one more problem/write one more sentence. Go. Now.

3. I don’t believe you did as I asked, but we will move on anyway.

4. You need that degree because the government gets really mad at doctors who don’t have a license.

5. You’re spending 5-10K a semester to be in school, do you really want to tack on extra semesters because you were surfing the web instead of working.

6. You need to finish your work so you can get back to your favorite activity: making up sentences that have never been said before (e.g., The yellow worm was into collecting heavy metal ephemera from the 1960’s.)

7. Not hearing another lecture from your parents is worth the effort.

8. You need to get done so you can get back to watching Star Wars again, this time backwards to look for hidden messages.

9. You might learn something if you into that sort of thing.

10. You need to get through this class so you can graduate. You need to graduate so you can go to graduate school and do it all again.

• I like #6 there. Feel free to make up you own new sentences and add them to the comments on this post.