Maximizing Your Undergraduate Academic Experience

Juarine Stewart, Ph.D.
Department of Biological Sciences
Clark Atlanta University
Copyright 1999, Juarine Stewart, Ph.D., Department of Biological Sciences, Clark Atlanta University, all rights reserved. Used with permission.

Congratulations! You are now in college! Your academic performance to date has warranted this reward. By virtue of the fact that you are here means that you have come to appreciate the value of a college education for entering and advancing in a particular career. What I’d like to share with you are a few thoughts on how to maximize your undergraduate academic experience. These are some of your prime learning years. Get the most out of them.

Attending Class

The first step in getting the most out of your classes is to attend them. You would be surprised by the number of your colleagues who think that they can successfully complete a course by showing up once or twice a week, if that often, and taking the examinations. Memorizing enough material to pass a multiple choice test and thoroughly understanding course material are entirely different matters. Therefore, the first proactive step you must take in your self-education is to attend all scheduled classes and to get to them on time.

Reading Before Class

The most difficult thing to do is to try to understand a new concept while hearing it for the first time from someone lecturing to you. The easier way to learn new things is to be exposed to them several times. The first exposure of course material should be by reading the textbook for the course and other assigned material. It may be necessary to read this material several times in order to get an understanding of the concepts. Now, when you hear the concepts presented by the teacher in his/her lecture, this will represent the third or fourth time that you have encountered this material and your familiarity with it will have increased. If, after the instructor’s explanation, you still do not understand it, you are prepared to ask specific questions.

Notetaking During Class

What I have learned from my own experience is that you cannot listen to the instructor attentively and write at the same time. It is preferable to focus totally on the lecture being presented, making brief notes of explanation in a notebook, if necessary. My most effective learning techniques were to make notes from the text and other material in a notebook prior to class. I would then listen to the instructor’s explanation of concepts during class. I would also make appropriate notes in the margins of the notebook for issues that I did not completely understand. By this time, I would have heard or seen the material three times: once when I read it, the second time when I went back over it to make notes, and third time while it was presented by the instructor during class.

Hearing, Listening and Understanding During Class

The following definitions come from Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Hear - to gain information.
Listen - to hear something with thoughtful attention.
Understand - to grasp the meaning of.

All of these definitions lead to the same concept of maximizing your academic experience. Upon entering the classroom, you must be prepared to focus your attention on the concepts being presented by the instructor in an effort to gain and fully appreciate the meaning of the material. This means that you cannot bring to class with you thoughts of the problems in the dormitory, thoughts of the problems in your personal life, or thoughts of the upcoming class or examination. When you are not attentive during a class, you have missed the opportunity to get all of your money’s worth from that lecture. The brain is amazing, but cannot consciously focus on more than one thing at a time. Therefore, be prepared to hear, listen and understand whenever you enter the classroom.

Approaching the Teacher after Class

When a brief explanation of a concept presented in class will drive the point home for you, approach the teacher immediately after the lecture to obtain this information. However, for longer explanations, make an appointment to see the teacher during his/her office hours. Understand the teachers have other obligations and may not be able to spend a lengthy time after class anyway. So make that appointment.

Student-Teacher Conferences

One of the things I have learned in my eighteen years of teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels is that students rarely interact with their instructors outside of the classroom. Given that the time in the classroom is generally limited to lecturing by the instructor and notetaking by the student, there is no time for one-on-one discussions except at times outside of the classroom. One of the amazing things that students usually discover during these meetings is that the instructor is a nice human being with a sense of humor and an understanding of the complex life of an undergraduate. It therefore behooves you to meet with your instructors at least once during the semester to gain further knowledge of the course material and to discuss any particular difficulty you are having in the comprehension of the course material. You may be surprised to learn that the instructor has been waiting to see you.

Students should seek conferences with teachers for several reasons, but the most prevalent one is to discuss course material. It is essential for students to understand that the main responsibility of teachers is to explain concepts presented in the text in an effort to get the student to understand the concept itself, and its underlying rationale. Therefore, it is imperative that you play a proactive role in your education. If you go to class with the expectation that it is the teacher’s responsibility to educate you, then you have already set yourself up for failure. However, if you approach your classes with the undertstanding that you must be an active participant in the educational process, then half the battle is won.

Come to the conference with specific questions to be addressed. This is possible only if you have tried initially to comprehend the material on your own. If calculations are involved, be ready to show the teacher your attempts at doing them and to share the rational for your approach. This demonstrates that you are a serious student who is taking responsibility for learning the material.

Approach the teacher with a positive attitude - no matter your personal feelings about the teacher or your perception of his/her feeling towards you. Seek the teacher’s assistance at the time you have difficulty, not weeks later or just before an examination. Arrange for a conference with the teacher as often as is necessary to understand the course material; but also participate in a peer study group.

The fact that you have gained admission to Clark Atlanta University means that you know most of this already. I simply wanted to remind you that the fun has just begun. Remain an active participant in the learning process. It is a life-long, never-ending process. Finally, let me reiterate what I hope will become a guiding principle for your undergraduate experience and beyond. You are responsible for your own education.