College Lesson Learned #11

#11- College reading is much different from high school.  In both cases, you don’t actually want to read, and in high school you don’t. However, in college you actually do the reading.


In high school, you were maybe assigned a chapter or two a night and you never read, you talked to the people who did read. However, in college, it is very possible that in two weeks, you could have to read two or three books. It happened in a history class that I was in. We met three times a week, and every two classes we had to have read an entire book. Historical writings generally aren't the most exciting of writings, in fact, as informative as they are, some might even call the "dry." Interesting topics but not exciting readings.


Now I'll be honest, I recorded this College Lesson Learned before I realized, "Hey, you don't ALWAYS have to read!" and it is true. Some classes you grab your book and wait to figure out what is happening and then you say some comment that doesn't need strong contextual evidence to back up but sparks conversation. Bam! You have just earned participation points. On the flip side, in some classes you ONLY have to read. A lot of lecture-based classes the tests are based primarily off the readings. The lectures are either a small portion of the test, or they are reflective of the reading. 


Moral: Decipher which is type of class you are in and plan accordingly.