Can you fail college before you even start? Can you start a class so strong you have to try to fail? Is there anything you can do over break that will kill your chances of success? I was teaching some of my material to some parents recently and these were all questions that were asked during this session.
To answer them in order:
No.
Almost.
And to an extent.
I think that second questions is the most important. Having said that let’s talk briefly about the first. It is very easy to start off so badly that you almost ensure failure. This mostly involves not getting enough sleep for a month before classes, not getting the textbook, and showing up to school (not the class, the university) late. I had a room mate who did this once. He failed.
Having said that you can still come back from this it’s just a whole lot of work. Way more work than I want to do. Your going to have to rush order the textbook/ buy at the book store (the only thing he screwed up), go over everything you missed, stay with the class, go to the teacher a lot for help. Even then you can expect to put in some really long days.
And then you still might fail.
So, what about the second question? Can you start a class so strong you almost have to try to fail? Again, almost. After my first year in college I started trying to do this. I got a bit better at this after I did it a few times but most people will find my first attempt more than enough to ensure an A.
Best of all it had only 3 steps.
Doesn’t that sound great? Only 3 things you need to do in order to start classes so strong you almost have to try to fail. And best of all it does not take a lot of time. The bad news is you won’t want to do any of them. It’s just the way people’s minds work over breaks.
The Dreaded Textbook
The first thing you need to do is just read the textbook. Don’t go freaking on me. I did not say you need to understand the textbook. Just read it. Not all at one time. Read maybe a chapter a day. If doing this for multiple classes read a chapter a day in a different book every day.
Just doing that will put you light years ahead of other students. This is for two reasons. First, it exposes you to the material an extra time. Getting one extra good rep with it, particularly before the rest of the class, makes such a huge difference for your understanding. Now your ahead of the class and you can help teach people.
And remember, it’s always easier to be ahead than behind.
The second reason is less commonly talked about. Learning is a muscle and taking a few weeks, let alone a few months, off is horrible for it. Your brain just get’s weak. On the other hand, even just light learning, such as reading the textbook can keep your brain in fighting shape. Or big giant test shape?
I might need to work on my analogies.
Get Your Notes Ready
The second thing is a little harder and requires some guess work. Let’s start with the guess work. You need to guess how far the first class will get in the notes. You want to get on line and copy the notes from the power point for as far as you think the first class will go. That’s it.
A few notes on doing this (pun intended). Make sure you leave a lot of space. Again, you will need to guess at how much you need. Unless you have had the teacher before how can you know? But, however much you think you need, give yourself a little more. You don’t want your notes to be cramped and impossible to read.
Rest Your Brain
The last thing you really need to do is the most important. Yet so often people neglect it. you need to get enough sleep. As an insomniac I can tell you, you always do better when you have enough sleep. Operating in a fog is not a strong enough analogy for going to school without sleep.
If you would like more on this, click Here.
If you can manage these three things, you can start your class of so strong it will be like playing video games on easy mode with cheat codes. You will sail through every problem with almost no issue. It is well worth the little amount of time it takes to do this.