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.




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