Survival Guide for the First Year at University

Starting college or university can be an exciting step in one’s life; for others, it can be a scary and stressful transition from high school into the unknown, especially if you have decided to study abroad or halfway across the country you reside in. For those who are starting university this summer, we have outlined a survival guide for the first year at university. Take a look at our 8 tips on how to make the most out of the time of your first year at university.

Keep a Planner or Agenda

A key time management tool is a planner or agenda to help you schedule every significant moment of your day.

Whether you opt for a physical or digital planner, there are plenty of ways to personalise it! Make it colourful or choose different fonts and styles to help you schedule your minutes of the day. This will help you see how you are spending your time and ensure that you are maximising every moment and prioritising studying for assessments.

Although your classes for your chosen courses will be scheduled, it may be useful to add these to your calendar to get a clear image of your day. This way, you can restrict events that take place at the same time.

A planner or agenda isn’t only for course-related tasks; it’s also for allocating time for yourself, socialising with friends and family, going to the gym, or joining a sports club.

The perk of having a detailed planner is that your time won’t be used for other activities. The last thing you want to do is accidentally neglect your studies, by forgetting to study for a test or not completing a tutorial assignment (these count for course points).

And here’s a pro-scheduling tip: once you receive your course materials (syllabus, outline), take note of any important dates for tests, projects, and written assignments, and schedule times throughout the semester or quarter you will devote to those fundamental deadlines ahead of the due date as a proactive measure to combat procrastination and late submissions (this can influence your overall grade, a 5% deduction can change your performance for an A to a B).

Related: How To Create A Study Timetable You’ll Actually Use

Use a Note-Taking System That Works

Throughout your whole primary and secondary education experience, you've had to learn how to take notes to retain knowledge for in-class tests and semester examinations effectively. Note-taking will be considerably more significant at the college or university level, especially if you take qualitative-based courses.

You can either use your laptop (which might be faster during classes) or write notes by hand, this is at your discretion. However, psychology research shows that writing notes by hand helps with memory recollection, particularly with remembering conceptual information for a longer period of time.

Pro-tip: record your lectures. It may prove difficult to write down all the important information lectured by your college or university professor; recording your lectures can help you fill in any gaps in your class notes. You can use a digital recording device, such as a phone, or a laptop sound recording app.

Make sure your class notes are legible and concise so you can make the most out of your notes when revising or studying.

Never. Ever. Plagiarise.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, plagiarism is defined as:

• Stealing the ideas or words of another person/author and using them as one’s own.
• Using what another person has produced without crediting the original source.
• Committing literary theft.
• Using an idea of an existing source, and presenting it as new or innovative.

Based on the definitions above, it is clear that plagiarism is viewed as an offence and as an act of fraud (stealing), and therefore should be avoided by all means.

To succeed as a writer in college or university, you must learn how to communicate the ideas of others while giving due acknowledgement to the sources you use. You must also demonstrate your ability to use an idea, theory, or concept as the basis for your arguments.

So how can you avoid plagiarism:

• Find and use multiple resources in your assignments and projects.
• Learn how to correctly cite sources using outlines given to you by course coordinators, because different courses use different crediting formats (e.g APA, Chicago, MLA).
• Illicit the help of programs and apps that detect plagiarism, these include Grammarly (subscription), Small SEO Checker (free), and Duplichecker (free).
• If your college or university has a plagiarism detection system, ask your course coordinator or tutor about it and how it works (some plagiarism detection systems let you check for plagiarism before final submission).