Sometimes it’s just really hard to surprise that difficult professor and go from a decent grade to a stellar one even when you try really hard. Here are some tips to motivate you to get the grade you should have without breaking your brain.
- Use a second pair of eyes on homework, tests, and papers to catch your mistakes.
Sometimes you can’t see errors but you can always have someone else look at it who sees it differently.
- Talk constructively in class all the time.
Class participation is key in college. Don’t just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, use others ideas to boost your thought process and start a discussion, not a string of random comments.
- Become friends with your professor and go to office hours to discuss the material outside of class.
If they understand that you not only have a handle on the material, and enjoy it so much that you want to have an intellectual discussion outside of class, it shows them that you’re trying. Trying always gets big bonus points and it’s not sucking up.
- Use study groups.
When you work with other people to bounce ideas off of, you not only figure out how much you know the materiel, but you can add extra thoughts to your own. If you’re stumped on an essay question remember the other thoughts of your classmates in study group and see what you can come up with, two brains are always better than one.
- Do projects a week before they’re due and get criticism before the final due date.
This will ensure that you’ve met the professor’s criteria and give you an extra boost with what you can do to go above the grade you would have had, had you handed it in as it was. Make sure you get specific comments and then go above and beyond the next week.