20 Ways to Succeed in Post Secondary Education
The following persistence factors are the keys to success. Follow them and you
can and will succeed.
1. Find and get to know one individual who knows you are there and
who cares about your survival. One person, that’s all it takes. It might be the
leader of your study group, your teacher, Faculty support person or someone
from Student Services.
2. Learn what helping resources your campus offers and where they are located.
Look out for the career and counselling services, disability support services,
employment services and academic skills centres as well as many other
resources.
3. Understand why you are enrolled.
Your experience will be much
more productive if you can identify specific goals you wish to accomplish.
4. Set up a daily schedule and stick to it. No one else is going to tell you when to
study or sleep: you need to do this for yourself. If you can’t do it alone, find
someone on campus or at home to help.
5. If you are attending classes full time don’t work at a job for more than
20 hours per week if possible-between 12 and 15 hours is best. Most people go
on a downhill slide when they go beyond this amount. Try to work close to the
campus. Develop your budget and seek help with money management if
necessary.
6. Assess and improve your study habits. The key to your success as a
student involves taking better notes in class, reading more efficiently, building
writing skills and doing better on tests. Take advantage of study skills offered on
campus.
7. Know how to become an expert user of the campus library.
8. Improve your writing. The writing skills you develop now will serve you well
through your working life. Write something everyday. Keep a vocab list.
9. Develop creativity and critical thinking skills.
Challenge what you hear
and read. Ask why. Look for unusual solutions to ordinary problems and
ordinary solutions to unusual problems. Learn to develop a tolerance for
ambiguity.
10. Find a great teacher or advisor to mentor you. The right person can be an
invaluable source of support, guidance and insight through your time on campus.
Student Services
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11. Visit the career centre. Even if you have chosen your program or decided on
your career, the career centre and counsellors may offer you invaluable
information about careers you had not considered.
12. Make one or two friends among your peers.
Your student years
represent a chance to form new and lasting ties and offers a great diversity of
people to meet.
13. If you are not assertive enough, take assertiveness training. It’s never too
late to stand up for your rights in a way that respects the rights of others.
14. Get involved. Join the campus gym,
the campus offers.
or find out what other activities
15. Take your health seriously. How much sleep you get, what you eat,
whether you exercise, and the kinds of decisions you make about drugs, alcohol
and sex all contribute to how well or unwell you feel. Get into the habit of being
good to yourself and you’ll feel happier as a person and be more successful as a
student.
16. If you can’t avoid stress, learn how to live with it.
While stress is
inevitable, there are ways of dealing with it. Your counselling centre can
introduce you to techniques to help you to worry less and study more.
17. Show up for class. Teachers tend to test what they discuss in class, provide
clues to assignment content and structure as well as grading you on the basis of
class attendance. Being there is your responsibility. Simply being there every
day goes a long way to helping you graduate.
18. Remember that you are not alone.
Your fellow students are
experiencing all the uncertainties you are facing. Talk to your classmates about
their experiences and discover that there is strength in numbers.
19. Learn to appreciate yourself more. You have been accepted as a
new student, you are unique and you bring a lot of practical experience to your
studies.
20. Try to have realistic expectations. At first you may not do as well as you did
at secondary school. Or, you may even feel disadvantaged because you haven’t
studied for a long time. You need time to allow yourself to adapt to the style and
subject of an adult learning environment. In your life before, you would have
found that as you persisted things got better. When learning something new, you
often feel uncertain in yourself at first and with practice comes success.
Adapted from Gardiner, Jewler and Robb’s Your First Year Experience, Success
Strategies for Canadian Students
Student Services
Student Services (07) 3244 5095
S1 2011
CRICOS Provider 03020E