Academic Communication Skills

This week in {ruth} speaks college, I'll be sharing a bit about academic communication. First of all, proper academic communication is a skill that transcends your college career, and will be of great importance to you later in life as you are applying and interviewing for internships and jobs, and when you are employed and need to email or have a discussion with your boss or your coworkers.

As a brief introduction into academic communication, watch this video from the University of Victoria! It's as educational as it is hilarious!

If you'd rather skip the video or you just watched it, some of main points from this video are:

1. Know how to address your professor - some professors are cool with you calling them by their first name, others may wish to be called "Professor" or "Doctor ____". Your professor will typically tell you on the first day how they would like to be addressed.

2. If you have a quick question, it's best to just talk to your professors after class. If your question is longer, you can go to your professor's office hours or send them an email.

          -When emailing a professor, use appropriate language and formatting [no text talk or emoticons! :)] and make sure to include your name, course number, and section number, so that your professor knows exactly who is emailing them and what class you're in. You should also your course number and a description of your email in the subject bar. This is especially important since many professors teach more than one class, sometimes even different subjects, so this will help them be able to respond to you more efficiently.

3. When talking to your professor in person or emailing them, try to be direct and to the point. If you are meeting with them in person, maybe jot down a quick list of what all you want to discuss, so you don't forget about something that you wanted to talk with your professor about.

4. Be cautious and respectful when talking with a professor about grades. Try to ask for their reasoning behind your grade or advice on how to improve your grades in the future.

 An additional aspect of academic communication that is important to be aware of is Non-Verbal Communication. This includes facial expression, gestures, body language and posture, proximity, eye contact, and overall appearance. These are all things that will be of greater importance later on in life as you interview for internships and jobs, so it's a good idea to begin practicing these behaviors and skills now.

Importance of Getting Involved on Campus (And new exciting things!)

I apologize for such a long absence from posting. I noticed that I haven't written up a post since the first week of September, so that needed to be remedied. Since I apparently have difficulty coming up with topics for blog posts, I've decided I'm going to continue with the themes of college-related posts. I suppose I should begin by telling you a bit about myself. I am currently a Senior, and I have been an Orientation Leader at my University for the past two years and this year I have the opportunity to teach a freshman seminar class, so I consider myself to have a wealth of knowledge about how college works. I'm planning on having a weekly post about a college-related topic (probably not actually on Tuesdays though - we'll see what happens), and if you have suggestions please leave them for me in the comments! This week's post is going to be about getting involved on campus.

 

For most students, we're now entering the third or fourth week of classes! By now, you've probably found yourself overwhelmed by all the clubs and organizations that seem to be everywhere on campus. You might have even found a group to join. If that's the case: Congratulations! If you haven't yet found a club or organization that meets your needs/wants, then I encourage you to keep looking, or if possible, start your own!

The rule I generally hear is that students should try and be in at least two organizations or clubs; one that aligns with your major/degree/career choice and one that is something you're interested in. My freshman year, I joined a Pre-Health society and a volunteer organization called Learn to Be, where I could tutor kids online. These checked off the two boxes for me. At the same time, don't go overboard with the organizations because you will feel like you don't actually have time for classes. Try reminding yourself that the primary reason you are in college is to get an education, so classes should come first. If you find out later on that you're too involved, it's ok to cut back. Trust me, the club isn't going to hate you for leaving because they're all college students too and they understand how important it is for you to be able to manage your time well.

Now I want to move into why getting involved is so crucial to your college career.

1. Make friends! If this isn't your main reason for joining a group, it should be a close second or third.
2. Tutoring/Study Groups/Advice from others
3. Events/Parties/Activities - most clubs will have at least a few events each semester, so this can give you an opportunity to relax and have fun.
4. Carpools - this kind of goes with making friends. It's extremely possible that others in your group have a car, and might drive you places if you don't.
5. Study break - because studying all the time can drain you and leave you mentally exhausted (not a great thing when you have a test later in the week)
6. Leadership experience and Community service
7. Networking - Maybe the student sitting next to you works in a research lab or has this sweet internship lined up. He or she could possibly help you out later on.
8. Resume - probably the most cliche thing related to academics and clubs. Yes, you can put it on your resume and it may make you look better to interviewers
9. Teacher recommendation/References - most clubs/organizations have to have a faculty sponsor. 

Organization and Study Tips for College

For many college students around the country, this is the second week of classes, which means exams are anywhere from 2-4 weeks away. That might still seem like a lot of time, but as the coursework starts picking up, it's easy to get overwhelmed as that time flies by, so here are some organization and study tips for college students.

1. Invest in a planner. No, I do not mean spend $50 on a 5-in-1 life planner, address book, farmers almanac, 5 year calendar, huge spiral bound monstrosity. Yes, these do work wonderfully for some people, and if you are one of those people, please be my guest. What I mean is that you should invest time and energy into setting up your planner and continually using it throughout the year. When I get my syllabi at the beginning of each semester, I like to go into my planner and mark all of the test dates and project due dates for the entire semester. Occasionally these dates may get shuffled around, but at least you'll have it in your planner to begin with, and then you can scratch it out and rewrite it or draw a huge arrow from the original date to the new date. You also have to invest a few minutes outside of class to write down homework assignments and then check to make sure you've completed everything that needs to get done. Usually if I don't have any upcoming assignments in a class, I'll make a note of that too, just so that when I'm looking back through my planner I know I haven't forgotten something for that class.

2. Use sticky notes. Seriously, there are a million different practical applications for the usage of sticky notes. They make marvelous book marks that you can annotate and they're really handy for reminding you of stuff. I like to make notes of assignments and due dates on sticky notes and post them on the wall above my desk. When I finish the assignment, I take it down, crumple it up, and throw it in the trash can, giving me a wonderful feeling of accomplishment until I look back up at the wall and see at least 10 more sticky notes waiting to be removed. Basically however you choose to use them, sticky notes are wonderful little things!

3. Keep your course materials together. Some people like to have a different folder or binder for each class, so if that works for you, go ahead! I personally don't like constantly having to switch out binders, mostly because I'm terrified I'll bring the wrong one by mistake. However you choose to keep papers and materials organized, make sure you continued to use it. It can become really easy to just cram a bunch of handouts into the front pocket of a binder, but then you end up having to shuffle through a huge stack of paper to find what you're looking for, and it takes forever. So, I recommend using dividers or one of those accordion pocket folders to keep papers organized by class and, if you're really ambitious, by subsection.

4. Flashcards. We've now moved on to "study" tips, and the first big one is FLASHCARDS! The reason the flashcards are so popular is that they work! True, you may merely be memorizing the concepts, but hey, sometimes that's all it takes to do well on a test. Some people like using online flashcard websites and programs, and again, if this works for you, do it! I'm a personal fan of handwriting my own flashcards out on note cards (usually note cards that I've cut in half so's to save paper). I find that simply writing out the concepts onto the flashcards helps me, and having the physical flashcards with me in my backpack allows me to review/study, with or without internet access during short breaks of time that I would normally just waste playing a game on my phone.

5. Read the textbook. Your professor assigned it for a reason: it will help you do well in the class. I'm not saying that you have to read ahead in the book, so that you already know exactly what your professor is talking about, but it's good to not fall really far behind. I remember for one of my intro biology classes, I felt fairly comfortable with the material, so I chose not to read the book, assuming that attending lectures and workshops would be enough to do well. During the week of the first test, other students told me that there would apparently be a significant part of the test that came directly from the book instead of the lectures, so I panicked and started reading right away, and, wouldn't you know it, I fell asleep after reading the first 3 pages. I mean, deep, deep sleep; like I think I crashed for about 2 hours because the book was so boring, I was overwhelmed with how much I needed to read, and I was exhausted. Please, learn from my mistakes and read the assigned parts of the book!

6. Learn your learning style. Are you a visual learner or an auditory learner? How about a kinesthetic or logical learner or a solitary or social learner? Figure out what learning styles work best for you, and use it to your advantage. If you're an auditory learner, ask your professor if you can record the lectures and listen to them again. If you're visual, study figures and diagrams more closely and try to write things out. If you're not sure what learning style you have, you can take a quiz online such as these: Educationplanner.org
       LDpride.net
       Vark: A guide to learning styles

7. Form a study group and take turns "teaching" the concepts to one another. Research shows that being able to teach a concept indicates mastery of the concept, so while you're studying with your friends, take a break and try to explain it to them without using any of your notes. If you're able to clearly explain the concept to them, then you probably understand it enough yourself to do well on the test/assignment. Also, when working with a study group, try and use a variety of learning styles to help all of the members of the group.

I hope that these tips have given you new ideas about different things to try (or not to try) to help you do well in your classes this semester, or to help you stay organized and on top of things. Thank you for reading my blog, and please check back here often for new posts.