One business school hopeful reflects on lessons learned as a college student.
I may only be a junior, but there are a lot of things that I wish I had known before starting my career as a college student. Here are some key takeaways that I’ve gathered from my experience:
Tips from a business school-bound college student
- Use your campus resources, check out Rate My Professors, and ask your friends for advice when choosing courses. Doing a little research will ensure that you get the best classes and professors.
- Don’t worry if you can’t get into all the classes you have planned for a given semester. Consider putting your name on the waitlist. A lot of college students like to reorganize their course schedules over break and may drop the classes you want to take—so check back often for available spots.
- If you aren’t exactly sure which classes you want to take in a semester, register for more hours than you plan on taking. This may sound overwhelming, but you will appreciate being able to drop a class and still maintain full-time enrollment instead of having to drop a class and scrambling to fill those credits with something.
- Attendance actually matters for college students: After high school, I assumed that since I was paying for these college classes I could attend at my leisure—as long as I still did well in the class. That is not the case. In addition to missing out on important learning opportunities, I have lost valuable points from missing pop quizzes or in-class assignments.
- Read your syllabus thoroughly for each class. Yes, college students love syllabus week because there’s no real work to do. But the point is to actually read the syllabus. There is so much information you’ll need for planning ahead—from office hours, to dates of tests, to the percentage that each assignment counts towards your final grade. While exams are often the most intensive part of the class, other course components can have a significant impact on your GPA as well. Despite maintaining an A in my freshman Spanish class and doing well on almost every assignment, for example, I ended up with a B for my final grade. How did that happen? I didn’t realize just how much attendance counted and lost a complete letter grade because of it. As you can imagine, I now read every syllabus closely.
- Spread out your general education requirements. I’ve already finished a lot of my core classes, and now my schedule is fully packed with classes that will prepare me for business school. It’s also nice to have the freedom to add breadth to your curriculum with an anthropology elective or a psychology class. Business school admissions committees appreciate well-rounded applicants.
- Finally, the most important tip—and what I really wish I had known early on—is that you have to study constantly. In high school, you may have gotten away with cramming for tests and then forgetting the information afterwards. As a college student, you’re learning cumulatively. Each lesson builds upon earlier ones, so falling behind can have serious consequences. Learning things the first time will make your life easier and will better prepare you for graduate or business school.
In the end, you want to do your best in your undergrad career because it actually matters. If you intend on applying for an advanced degree, you should keep the above tips in mind for maintaining your GPA along with planning for your GMAT or GRE scores; issues with grades and test scores constitute the two biggest application killers. If you’re willing to learn from your mistakes, you’re already well on your way to success in business school and beyond.
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The post Lessons Learned from a Pre-Business College Student appeared first on Business School Insider.
