How to Succeed in Engineering

1. Keep up
   • Learn to manage your time and avoid procrastinating
   • Make tasks fit into the time that you have to do them
   • Do some work on every course every week; learn as you go
   • Do some problems every day
   • Plug gaps and ask questions about what you don't understand every week
   • If you fall behind, jump in where the teacher is and backtrack later
2. Be an active learner
   • Before class, go over notes from the previous class and preview the textbook chapter
   • After class, go over your notes and fill in missing info; work the problems the teacher did in class; get help if you don't understand
   • After solving a problem, summarize the steps in words
   • After solving a series of problems at the end of a chapter, organize problems by types and procedures (Get the Big Picture)
3. Study smart: Quality time is more important than quantity time
   • Spend time on value activities, i.e. spend more time doing problems than reading the textbook
   • Be selective; focus on priorities in a course
   • If you get stuck on a problem, get help, then or later; don't spend too long trying to figure it out yourself
   • Prepare for an exam by doing problems without your notes in a time limit; know when you know by testing yourself
4. Use as many resources as possible
   • Get to know other students in your class and work with them
   • Get to know your teacher and use his/her office hours
   • Check out other textbooks or self-help material from the library or book store if you are having difficulties
   • Get other students' phone numbers or emails so you can contact them easily when you have difficulty or miss class
   • Use Student Services, including Counselling and Development

Remember:
Learning is YOUR responsibility. Be active, aggressive, efficient. Working with others can save time and increase learning power.