WELL I AM STARTING COLLEGE IN JANUARY AND I AM ONLY 16 AND I FEEL REALLY NERVOUS...I PLAN ON MAJORING IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE...IF ANYONE HAS TAKEN CLASSES ON CJ CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT TO EXPECT...WHAT YOU WENT OVER IN CLASS....I KNOW IT CANT BE EXACTLY WHAT I AM GOING TO DO...BUT JUST SOMETHING....ANY ADVICE ON ANY SUBJECT PLEASE I NEED SOMETHING.
2006-10-04 18:46:18 · 5 answers · asked by a.john89 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Higher Education (University +)
Not with CJ specifically, but here's some survival hints. FOR YOUR FIRST YEAR, live on campus. Forget dating-there's plenty of guys to last you a lifetime and you need to concentrate on developing good habits your first year or you will not survive the Sophomore Slump (when many drop or fail out).
Here's more
1. Don't drink booze at all. Don't do drugs at all. Sleep well every night including before a big test
2. FIND OUT WHAT THE HARVARD OUTLINE METHOD is and use it religiously. (OK--part of the Method is to get your profs to tell you weeks before the course starts what textbook(s) to buy and what are the first four chapters they will lecture on. READ these and apply the Harvard Outline Method BEFORE the first class--YES ALL FOUR CHAPTERS. and then stay that many ahead all through the course. READ the preface, foreword, index, footnotes and appendices. AT LEAST go to the library and scan the outside readings suggested in your textbook EVEN IF the prof doesn't assign any of them. LEARN WHAT IS IN YOUR REFERENCE LIBRARY OR REFERENCE ROOM in your main library (depends on the size of the college as to the setup. LEARN THE "LITERATURE"--these are the bound books of papers that academics have had "published" over the years. Ask your faculty which journals (the bound books are of academic periodicals which are called journals) your discipline uses and then go read parts of some of them. It'll be mostly over your head at first, but, hey, you'll catch on!!
DO THESE THINGS AND YOU WILL GET AN A IN EVERY COURSE. (And you will never have to "Cram" or do an "All-NIGHT STAND" because you ALWAYS will be ready for a test AT ALL TIMES just easily as you breath and walk. In fact, use the Harvard Outline Method and you will be better off watching TV the night before an exam.)
3. Push away the party people. You will be barraged by their demands. Go to the library to study if your roomies or neighbors want to raise h*ll. Remember, you can always call the cops and complain. Just don't let anyone know it's you that's calling them.
4. DONT ACCEPT the h*ll-raisers' claim that "HEY, THIS IS COLLEGE AND WE ARE COLLEGE STUDENTS" and then ruin your lives with their partying around the clock. WHY? BECAUSE THIS //IS// COLLEGE AND //YOU// ARE A COLLEGE STUDENT. WTF?, you ask, is the difference? WHAT IS DIFFERENT is that the faculty does not graduate you on your partying skills and your future potential employers will not interview you in hopes that they find you are a party-animal.Let THEM ruin their futures by partying for four years. YOU are the deadly serious student who is there for an EDUCATION.
YES--YOU ARE IN COLLEGE FOR THESE REASONS--TO LEARN SKILLS, GAIN KNOWLEDGE, AND BECOME AN EMPLOYABLE ADULT SOLELY ON YOUR SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE AND NOT BECAUSE YOU ARE A MINORITY OR KNOW SOMEONE.
5. Study like it is a job and you are afraid you are about to be fired for poor performance on the job--because that IS exactly what being a student is. It IS a job--YOUR JOB--and you had better do well at it or you are just wasting your time, your parents and the taxpayers' tax-money, and YOUR FUTURE.
6. Never sell your textbooks or throw your notes, chapter outlines, tests or essays away. THESE ARE THE TOOLS you will need later on once you are on the job. THESE THINGS ARE THE PHYSICAL PART OF YOUR EDUCATION. KEEP THEM FOREVER AS THE CORE OF THE LIBRARY YOU ARE BUILDING FOR YOURSELF IN YOUR HOME OR APARTMENT.
7. Ask questions in and after class, visit your profs during their announced visiting hours. Ask for extra assignments. Volunteer in your junior and senior years to tutor freshmen even for free. Offer to be a proctor for your profs (look the word up).
8. YOU MIGHT WANT TO GO FOR A MASTERS DEGREE after your bachelors. They are lots of fun, only take about 18 months to finish and they will elevate you in the world like NOTHING ELSE. In fact, you might want to think about a ph.d.--and become a professor yourself.
9. If you can afford it, join a respectable, scholarship-oriented sorority and try to become an officer in it. That will look good on your resume.
10. Start asking profs from whom you will not take any more courses to give you a letter of assessment or recommendation and KEEP THESE for use when you are job-interviewing. In short, begin networking during your sophomore year.
11. DON'T HAVE SEX during your first year. You are the one at risk and all kinds of campus studs will be leaning on you for sex. You are only 16 and while you have to be smart in order to be planning college two to three years earlier than most, YOU ARE NOT WISE. You don't know the world. You don't know the terrain. You don't know how rotten some guys are.
12. Go to church Sundays. Be tidy, polite and behave yourself. ANd eat good well-rounded meals. Pizza is not one. Nor is Pepsi or Coke. Drink fruit juices and milk. You WILL need the energy from wholesome foods. Brain work is exhausting, OK? Just like digging ditches, REALLY !!
13. Your textbooks at the undergraduate level are SUMMARIES. Each word in them comes from a shelf of books. YOU ARE NOT EDUCATED WHEN YOU GRADUATE. DO NOT BE ARROGANT because you were graduated because you have no right to be. --You only know what the tools are, you see. At the master's level, you learn HOW to use the tools. At the Ph.D. level, you INVENT tools for the masters and bachelors to work with. (See the three levels?)
14. This is the tricky part to understand. You are going to be propagandized by your textbooks and your profs. THEY ALL HAVE AN AGENDA--one that they want you to accept and agree with. ALL OF THEM ARE POLITICAL ANIMALS LOOKING FOR ALLIES !!! Learn what they lecture and expect you to know and then give it back to them on texts and in essays--but remain your own person. Play the game, in other words, and keep your thoughts to yourself.
THE FOLLOWING IS VERY TRUE--Your textbooks and your profs will LIE TO YOU. They do this because they are having to summarize and they have to leave out whereas, wherefore, qualifiations, doubts and "we just don't know but this is our best guess" stuff. IN FACT, someone once said that ALL academic published papers and textbooks ought to begin with "ACCORDING TO OUR CURRENT BEST UNDERSTANDING ..." and then go on. WHY? Because we humans know NOTHING for an absolute truth. EVERYTHING is a "grid upon nature"--ask a philosophy prof what that means, OK?
15. NEVER TRUST statistics. There are too many ways to cheat with statistics. You would be wise to take a statistics course just to see what I have stated here. One-tail and two-tail distributions--remember that. I can prove black is white by choosing one or the other to use in making my statistical calculations. DO USE the statistics your profs provide or which are in the textbooks--but take them with a grain of salt.
16. FINALLY--copy/paste this message, print it out and memorize it as well as taping it to your study wall. This is THE SECRET OF THE AGES and I have given you about an hour of my life. Respect my labors, please. Use this stuff.
AND...
Best of luck, kid--you'll need it !!!
.
2006-10-04 19:29:42 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
My brother is majoring in crimina justice. He say's to take your prerequisites first! There is nothing worse then taking all cj classes and then you have to get started on your prereq's later! It takes lots of discipline, so hang in there. You're probably very smart, considering you're only 16 and starting college! So just do what you've done all of these years!
2006-10-04 18:55:42 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Oh, you better go to your college library and ask for the Freshman's syllabus. The make advance reading so that by the time your professors will discuss the subject matter, you're tendency by then will just listen and recall everything that you have read in advance. And for sure, you will get high grades ;)
Good luck!
2006-10-04 18:51:59 · answer #3 · answered by Mutya P 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
don't go to college unless it's really what you want to do at 16.
2006-10-04 18:56:24 · answer #4 · answered by jaimestar64cross 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
dont ever be a lone ranger....always move and work in packs...
2006-10-04 18:50:09 · answer #5 · answered by q.reous.c.t 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋