Saving Your Semester

Behind in your studies? Not getting the grades that you want? Worried about your GPA?

Even at this late hour, it may not be too late for you to significantly improve the grades you will earn for the spring semester. What you need to do is:

1. Determine the work that you need to do.
2. Create the time to do the necessary studying.
3. Monitor the quantity as well as the quality of the work you do.

First, review the syllabus for each of your classes and figure out the things that you need to do to satisfactorily complete each class. These could be to read and study five chapters, review the rest of the textbook, and write the assigned paper.

Next, convert each task for each class into the number of hours that you will need to do the work. Compute the total number of hours you will need for each class. In the above example, you might need two hours to read each chapter, one hour to review each of ten other chapters and fifteen hours to write your paper. That means you need 35 hours for that one class.

When you complete the analysis of all of your classes, you will know the total amount of study time you will need to complete the semester. Add an extra ten or twenty percent more time to the total to counter the tendency to underestimate study time.

Suppose you end up with a number like 120. That means you need 120 hours of study to complete your semester. Now all you have to do is make the time available.

There are 168 hours in a week. How many weeks do you have until the end of your last examination? If there are three weeks, you have 504 hours available to you. You need approximately 40 hours each week to get your class work done.

What changes in your normal schedule will you need to make that study time available to you? Will you have to change work hours, reduce your time with your friends, or spend fewer hours watching TV?

If your priority is to get the best grades you can, will not the small inconveniences now be worth the higher grades you will probably get if you do the work you need to?

When you end each work session, review what you have learned and then evaluate whether you have learned the material you studied as well as you wanted to. If you have not mastered your work at the level you need to know it, what adjustments do you need to make in order to learn more effectively?

For help in creating your end of the semester strategy, call the Learning Assistance Service (301-314-7693) for a counselor appointment or for information about our workshops.

This article was written by Dr. John E. Van Brun, former Assistant Director of the Counseling Center
for the Learning Assistance Service and the author of You Can Master the Maze of College.