Worried about how well you’ll do on your first college exam? Second-guessing how you should study or prepare? To help calm your fears, we asked UToledo professors who teach common first-year courses their advice to new freshmen. So take a few pages from their books to help you succeed in your first semester at UToledo and beyond.
Featured courses:
Composition I
College Algebra
General Physics
General Chemistry I and General Chemistry Lab
General Chemistry II
Composition I – Teresa Boyer, Assistant Lecturer
1. Go to class
“If you’re not there — and this is true with really everything in life — if you don’t show up, you can’t do anything else. So, showing up is the basis. You’ve got to at least do that.”
2. Accept that you need this class
“You can’t go on until you take this class, and it’s that way for a reason. You’re going to have to do research, you’re going to have to analyze, you’re going to have to make an argument, you’re gonna have to write papers, so you need the skills that are here.”
3. Come to office hours
“I do try to keep as many office hours as possible, and I do encourage my students to come in to see me. […] I can direct them to the right resources because we do have a lot of resources available, and I can listen.”
College Algebra – Kevin Gibbs, Senior Lecturer
1. Talk to your professor
“Sometimes life has gotten in the way: personal problems, money, whatever. And I understand that, but [students] can still come and talk, because maybe I know a solution.”
2. Do your homework in the tutoring center
“Why not do your homework where, if you have a question or a problem where you just don’t understand something, there’s somebody there that’s more than happy to help you?
3. Know the basics
“Math is, you’re adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, maybe some square roots, and once you learn about variables and how you treat variables, which is usually a middle school thing, what else do they teach you other than just some new definitions and how to apply them?”
General Physics – Dr. Jillian Bornak, Distinguished University Lecturer
1. Try your best
“[Students] don’t need to be perfect. They just need to try, try to do the things that I ask. Then I guarantee not only will they pass, but they’ll probably pass with a grade that they’re kind of happy with.
2. Be fair to yourself
“[Physics] isn’t something you can pick up the night before [an exam]. So treat it like a marathon, do a little bit each day.”
3. Have the right mentality
“[Understanding physics] is a skill like riding a bike. The way to learn it is to do it, which means the students have to practice being frustrated and practice not knowing what to do, and that is very challenging and emotional at times.
4. Review your past mistakes
“There is nothing like looking over the mistakes you made, when you’re not freaking out on the exam, to really help you learn that thought process, which is important.”
General Chemistry I and General Chemistry Lab – Dr. Anna George, Associate Lecturer
1. Pay attention
“One of the big challenges that students have when they take, specifically, this course is if they had it in high school or have some kind of background with it, it’s hard to pay attention because you already know it and it feels like you’re sitting through the same course again. The challenge is looking for the things they didn’t already know. For the other students, it can become very overwhelming very quickly because it looks like everyone’s speaking a language you have never seen before.”
2. Get to know the people who can help you
“Even if we may seem intimidating at first, your first line of defense to do well on a course, even if it’s a course you already think you’re going to do well in, is to get to know your professor. Know where their office is, make sure they know you by name. That provides students with an enriched experience from the course that they’re not gonna get in the large lecture hall.”
General Chemistry II – Dr. Claire Cohen, Senior Lecturer and Distinguished University Lecturer
1. Get ahead of deadlines
“Working ahead really opens doors up for doing well because it gives you the time to come in for some help.”
2. Learn how to recognize important topics
“If it’s repeated a lot, when the same topic comes up again in another class and another class, that’s generally going to be the most important material. And if it’s one time and you never hear about it again, you know that one’s usually not quite as important. So focus on the [topics] that you just keep bringing up and keep bringing up.”
3. Teach someone else the information
“If you teach a friend or someone else in the class, or even a parent or anyone willing to listen to you, try to teach them what it is you’re learning, then you’ll know it well.”
4. Ask questions
“Nobody knows it all. Students make a list of questions and then they show up to office hours every week and we go through the questions. And a lot of times those are the top students.”
All the professors we interviewed wanted their students to not only seek help, but to succeed. They each offer numerous ways to get extra guidance, so don’t worry — if you get stuck or things don’t go how you expected, your professors are there for you.
Responses were lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
