Steps I Take to Achieve Academic Success in College

Attending college can seem very overwhelming. Each class requires lots of readings, there are multiple assignments due each week, and quizzes to study for. It can be difficult to figure out where to start to make sure you are on a path towards achieving your academic goals. While I am not necessarily in the run for valedictorian or a straight A student, I have never failed a class and have actually gotten straight A's a few times. To me academic success means understanding what is being taught and getting the best grade that I am capable of. These steps can apply to starting out a degree, starting a semester or class, or whenever you might decide to come up with a plan to help yourself succeed in school. Below are ten steps I take to ensure academic success.

1. Believe in Myself

The first step I take is believing in myself. If I don't think I can do it, then I have likely already set myself up for failure. I try to remind myself how far I have come and the difficult classes that I have already passed. This helps me to remember that I am capable of doing difficult things and that I will be able to do this too.

2. Set Goals

Next, I decide what goals I have for myself. This works best when I set micro goals. Currently, my goals are to stay at least a week ahead on readings and assignments, get an A on each assignment, and retain new information each week. All of these micro goals will help contribute towards the overall academic goal of completing the program. By creating goals, I have a clearer idea of what I am trying to accomplish.

Learn more about setting goals by reading my post titled "How I set Effective Goals" (https://www.mlivesherway.com/post/how-i-set-effective-goals).

3. Motivate Myself

One way that I motivate myself is by regularly reviewing my goals and progress. For example, I will frequently remind myself that I want to stay ahead on readings and assignments by at least a week. I then look at the list of assignments and can see how many I have completed for the current week and upcoming weeks. This helps me to see how far I have come towards maintaining the goal or how close I am getting towards reaching it. By remembering my goals and seeing how I have progressed towards those goals, I am able to build the motivation I need to keep going. And if you are just getting started in a program, this can be as simple as looking back on the application process and all the steps you've had to complete just to be admitted into the program. Just preparing to start school can be a lot of work.

Learn more about motivation by reading my post titled "How I Maintain Motivation" (https://www.mlivesherway.com/post/how-i-maintain-motivation).

4. Manage my Time Well

Once I have the motivation to take on school, I have to figure out how to manage my time well. For me, how well my time is managed determines how much I am able to get done and how much time I have to spend on non-school related things. If I manage time appropriately, I can stay ahead and be able to do other things. This is important because if I am trying to force myself to do schoolwork all day, then eventually I will get burnt out. One way that I do this is getting an early start. For example, this morning I woke up at 6am. Before my son, "A," got up for the day, I was able to finish and submit my paper on special considerations in counseling, take a quiz, complete the reading, and type up my discussion post. By pushing myself to get out of bed before everyone else, I was able to get plenty done for school to the point that I did not have to worry about schoolwork for the rest of the day. Instead, I was able to take time away from thinking about school by making my husband, "C," and A pancakes for breakfast, cleaning up my house while listening to a podcast, playing a full game of disc golf, and going to a spaghetti dinner that we had bought tickets to.

5. Learn to Prioritize

By prioritizing, I am able to decide what is most important and needs to get done first, and what things need to be put off until later. For me, this means that each week I do the readings, post in the discussion, type up my paper, and then do the quiz. These items are prioritized in this order because I know I need to read and understand the material before I can attempt to do any assignments. Next, I post in the discussion because I have to do posts over a period of a few days and the first post has to be done before any other assignments are due. After that is the paper because I need time to work on it because it can be very overwhelming if I am attempting to type an entire paper last minute. Last is the quiz because I am more likely to know the answers to the questions if I have already done all the readings and assignments.

6. Develop a Routine

While some days my routine is like today's, where I get all my schoolwork done at the beginning of the day and then I have the rest of the day to do whatever I feel like, there are also days when more of a routine is needed. This would be especially true for the days when A gets up around the same time I do. For me, a good routine is blocking out my schedule so it trades off between doing something that doesn't relate to school and then doing something that is school-related. What this usually looks like for me is listening to a podcast while I clean up the house. Then, I take time to complete something for school, whether that be an assignment or reading a chapter from the textbook. After that, I play outside with A. Then, I do something for school. Next, I vacuum the house and do a workout with A. Then I do something for school. After that, I let A decide what we do, and so on.

7. Make Good Choices

Once I have a good routine down that allows me to get schoolwork done without getting burnt out, I get myself into a habit of making good choices. This means trying to go to bed at a reasonable time, only allowing myself to sleep in for up to fifteen minutes, eating healthier options so my brain functions properly, getting started on my schoolwork even if I don't feel like it, and really paying attention to what I am reading.

8. Get to Know My Professor

Something that can really affect my grades is how well I know my professor. Sure, most of it comes down to me and my efforts, but understanding the person who is grading the assignments can give an extra boost to my grades. What I mean is that every professor is strict on certain criteria and laid back on others. For example, the professor for my first class in the program was pretty much focused on just grading whether I understood the material. I got A's on every assignment except for a few quizzes that were graded automatically. The professor I had for my second class (I take each class one after the other) was very firm on factoring APA format into my grade for each assignment. Things that hadn't been marked down by the first professor were suddenly getting marked down. Things like the wrong part of my citations being italicized and not having the title at the top of the second page of my papers. Once I figured out what my professor was looking for, my grades on my assignments started getting better. Now, I am on my third class and the professor is more focused on the word count. Before, I had apparently underestimated how much of the title and reference pages factored into my word count. I was getting marked down for being just under the required word count for my papers. Now that I know that word count is important to this professor, I have been making sure to lean towards the higher end of the required word count.

9. Be Resilient

After getting to know my professor, I make an effort to be resilient. When it comes down to it, I am trying by best and I can only be accepting of whatever grade it is that I get. I have been struggling with my current class a little more than I usually do with other classes. There hasn't been an assignment that I haven't put all of my effort into. It's just that it can be more difficult to find some of the information that is specific to my state, as my class is online and we are all from different parts of the country. When I receive a lower grade than I had hoped for, I accept that the grade as it is and then I try to do better on the next assignment. If I don't do as well as I would have liked to, then it is not the end of the world. I can just try again.

10. Build Skills Relevant to my Coursework

Once I have all the other things down, I apply the skills I learn in school. This helps me to retain the information I was taught. In addition to this, I read books that are related to psychology or therapy. Because it relates to my school, I am able to understand the information better. An example would be that I read a book about psychology or therapy and at the same time I am taking a class about ethics in counseling. While the book may not be specifically about ethics, the information in the book that relates to ethics stands out to me much easier because that is what I am learning about in class. I then have more knowledge related to ethics and can apply the knowledge to building the skills that I will eventually use as a counselor.

What steps have you taken to achieve academic success in college?

• Believe in yourself
• Set goals
• Motivate yourself
• Manage your time well

See All Options

You can vote for more than one answer.