Читать книгу How to Succeed At University--International Edition - Danton O'Day - Страница 10

If you study this book and successfully complete your first year at university, you will pass each subsequent year and with each year your marks will get better. But you’ll have to continue to follow the rules. What is the big hurdle? It’s your first year at university. This is the biggest challenge of all and for many reasons. The major one is freedom. Believe it or not, freedom is bad. Well, at least it can be for many first-year university students.

Why? Students don’t know how to handle their newfound freedom. It’s too much for them; it’s overwhelming. There’s no one to tell you what to do or when to do it. There will be lots of assignments to do, but no one is going to check to see if you are doing your work. If you get a zero on your work, no one is going to worry. That’s your problem. If you don’t use your freedom properly, you will be one of the multitudes of first-year students who, as the end of the academic year approaches, wonder where the time went. A simple question will form in your mind: “Why didn’t I study a little harder?” Sometimes studying seems painful, but it’s more painful to get poor grades or to have to repeat a year’s work.

In general, attendance is not taken at lectures. Usually attendance is not taken in tutorial sessions or laboratory practicals either except when, because of the expense of operating such facilities, attendance is compulsory so that materials are not wasted. Of course, there may be exceptions depending on the programme and institution; as a rule, though, no one will know or care whether you show or don’t show at your classes.

When we say “Don’t care”, we should qualify that statement. Your teachers care as much as you do. But you are an adult (contrary to what your parents might argue!) and you are only one of a large number of students at the university. Therefore you will be expected to take responsibility for yourself.

There are lots of time wasters. We won’t list them now. First, we don’t want to give you new ideas about how to waste your time; that’s not the function of this book. Second, there are some real time-wasting pitfalls that should, or more correctly, must be avoided. These will be discussed in Chapter 12.

If you decide to live in residence, you will face the maximum number of these pitfalls. There always seems to be a party going on somewhere in the residence. If you are a social type you might find yourself being asked to go to a lot of these. We won’t say don’t go. What we will say is this: go only if you have time. Have you done all your work? Do you have an early class the next day? If you respond yes and no, in that order, then go. We’ll deal with time wasting again later on, but now let’s look a little harder at living in residence.