5 things I now have tattooed in my mind because of online and in-person college classes

I would have loved to have a couple of tips before going to college from someone who has experienced both in-person and online classes. Fortunately, I'm here to give you those tips as I went from online to on-campus college all within the same year.

You must know that both modalities can be different if you don’t know how to make your way through college. In this blog, you will learn that you need the same skills, and hopefully, you can put most of these tips into practice no matter in which format you are living your college experience right now.

A lot of people probably still think that college is all about getting good grades, but there are a lot of other things you should be doing to make your college experience more pleasant. If you want to know, keep reading!

#1 Always make study friends

It's way better to study with someone else rather than by yourself! If you have trouble focusing when studying, this will keep you off your phone and any other distractions, you will feel the responsibility of actually studying since another person's time is at stake, and it has to be worth it.

Make sure you are arranging study sessions with the people in your class. You can make groups chats through different platforms (Discord, Texts, WhatsApp) for you to meet in the library or online. Also, everyone is extremely busy with their lives nowadays, but if all of you have the interest to succeed, each one of you WILL make the time to get together.

#2 Attend your professors’ office hours

If you read my last blog, I talked about the importance of networking. I can’t say enough times how important this is, not only in college but in life. Everything comes down to who you know! 

Professors, especially at Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC), are overqualified professionals who have an enormous educational path. So, make sure they are getting to know you as a person and as a student. Therefore, office hours are the perfect time and place for you to show interest in their class. Even if you don’t have good grades, it shows that you are trying hard, and they love that.

Don’t be afraid to build that bond with them! They appreciate it.

#3 Check your email

Please make sure you have a valid email address. Almost everything you do in college will involve your email; this is how most of the professors and every other person will communicate with you and vice versa. 

You can argue with me and say that every college has its own platform and that you can use that instead of your email. However, most of those apps need your email for setup!

In addition to having a valid email address, do yourself a favor and make checking your email a habit. Constantly check your email, it’s very likely that your professor canceled the class and sent an email about it a one-hour prior. 

In addition to checking your email. It is important for you to know how to write one! You can always google how to do it depending on who are you reaching and what is your question. However, my # 1 tip would be to always be kind. After greeting, you can say, “I hope this email finds you and your family well” and then write your concern.

People are constantly getting tons of emails, and I can assure you that an introduction like that will stand out from the unread pile.

#4 Your CV looks wonderful with any on-campus activity

In the future, people you are interested to work with will ask for this document to see the experience you have and how you have been evolving in your professional life.

It is very important not to leave behind your professional life while you are studying. This is the perfect time to get a job and start to have little responsibilities, so it’s not overwhelming later on.  

Getting a job on campus is the best option. If you go to class, you are already at work that day, and you don’t have to worry about holidays or days off because they are the same as your classes. Plus, this will show that you are involved in your institution! That says a lot about you.

#5 Review the material that you didn’t understand 

Let's be real, there are 2 or 3 days a week when we just feel out of it. A lot of tiredness and very little motivation. Is very hard for us to learn something new or retain it, and it is okay, every college student feels this way sometimes!

The important thing here is how are we making amends for us to still have good grades in our classes, and I can give you a very easy one. The key is to review later that day the topic or the material you were supposed to understand in class. Please do this! 

It is going to be impossible to go through the remaining topics of the class without understanding the information from the beginning, and it is going to be even worse to try to relearn most of the material when the final exam comes. I promise you, your class I going to make way more sense if you make sure that you are learning the material in chronological order.

I hope you can implement these simple tips in your college life! :)