Get First Class Marks on Your Degree Course

I finished top on my degree course and won an award from my University. I am not particularly gifted or intelligent, I just worked hard and applied a strategy of sorts to my studies.

Whatever level you are working at, these tips can help you.

They are not study tips as such, but things you can do to get the most out of the resources available to you.

Use the first three of these tips before you start University to get a head start.

• Learn to touch type
• Learn how to use your wordprocessor properly
• Learn about academic referencing

• Touch typing means using all your fingers whilst looking at the screen.
• Touch typing allows you to work reall fast.
• Touch typing will save you hundreds of hours on your degree course.

• Touch typing is easy to learn
• Touch typing is a life long skill

I learned to touch type in around 10 hours using a CD rom tutorial. I used an old pre-owned version of "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing". You can pick these up a pre-owned copy very cheaply on ebay or Amazon.

The last point I made, about it being a life long skill... well, I learned a few years back now, and am using it right now!

Nothing to tax the brain here, just make sure you can do all the basics as well as a few extras like:

• Set up and use headings
• Generate tables of contents (from headings)
• Generate indexes (again from headings)
• Use page numbering

Tables of contents are required in a lot of documents on a degree course. They are also very useful when working on a document as you can quickly find different sections as you "jump around" adding things.

If you do not reference properly you can be accused of plagiarism (stealing others work) so... referencing is important.

It takes a while to become familiar to using referencing. You really want to have this nailed before you start your first assignment, so find out which system your University uses and learn how to use that system.

The nest tips in this list you can use when you first start University, i.e. in the first few days.

Most Universities do not have enough copies of each book for every student.

Get hold of reading lists as soon as you can, see if they are online, if not see if you can get a copy early from the lecturer, then go and get those texts before anyone else does.

If you fail to do this, you may have to reserve a copy and wait two weeks in the queue!

Find out what services your University offers:

• Extra classes in core areas like mathematics
• Extra classes on things like academic referencing
• A proof reading service

What is available on the Universities intranet, for example:

• Course documents / assignments
• Past exam papers
• Past assignments
• Past student projects
• Timetables

Make sure you understand what information is available to you, and use it!

When I was at University a lot of students complain about their "tough life".

Well, let me tell you in no uncertain terms, University is pi** easy compared to working for a living.

If you treat your degree like a job, do 09:00 - 17:00 with short breaks five days a week you will do well. During that time, work, don't chatter.

I used to work solidly in the day, every day. Evenings and weekends were largely my own unless I really needed the extra time. Treating my course like a job allowed me to:

• Work ahead

• Stay in control

• Managed my time

You cannot do any of those things unless you are putting the hours in.

As mentioned, I put the hours in, I got ahead with my work and this put me in control.

After learning to touch type this was the biggest time saver. If I got stuck on a problem I always had time to ask.

If you are behind with your work, you do not have time to get help. Then, you either waste a lot of time trying to work the problem out on your own, or you do not complete the task and lose marks.

So, work ahead, identify your problems early and ask for support.

Prioritisation is key to being a successful degree student.

• Get an A4 planner
• Mark all your deadlines on that planner
• Refer to that planner every time you switch tasks

I would say I referred to my planner at least three times a day. I always had it to hand and was always checking that I was doing the right thing at the right time. It only takes a few seconds, and it keeps you focussed on the tasks you need to complete.

When you get your assignment details, read them at least three times. Go over and over and make sure you know:

1. Exactly what the lecturer is looking for
2. Exactly what the marks are being awarded for

Speak to your lecturer to clarify what they are looking for, and make sure you proportion your effort according to the marks being awarded. If you have one section worth 70% of the total mark you had better make sure you get it spot on. If there is another element worth 5%, then, that is not such a priority is it?

By polish your work I mean work it and rework it, tweaking and improving until it is perfect, or, at least as good as you can get it.

Again, if you are working ahead on your course there will be plenty of time for this.

If your University has a proof reading service, then now is the time to use it!

Again, refer back to the assignment brief, now is the time to squeeze that last 1 or 2% out of your assignment.

Run it past your lecturer, see if you can get them to comment on it. Many will be reluctant to do this, but, if you dont ask you dont get. Quite often you will get very useful feeback, particularly if something is wrong.

Do not over do it, reworking a perfect document can only make it worse!

Good realationships with lecturers are one of your biggest assets.

Lecturers, just like anyone else will treat other people differently depending on their opinion of them. Do not make the mistake of thinking that, as professionals they will be completely even handed with all students.

If you are a time waster asking questions the day before an assignement is due in then, more than likely the lecturer will not be interested.

If you had asked that same question a few weeks earlier as part of a sensible conversation then they they would have been far happier to answer it, and, you then have the time to drill a little deeper, develop your ideas further.

If you show a genuine interest and take the time to speak sensibly to your lecturers then you can glean a lot of additional information from them.

To do this, read around the subject first and ask sensible probing questions.

• Don't get too smart, you need to learn from them, not teach them.
• Dont ar** lick or bull***t, that wont get you anywhere.

Again.... read up on the subject, show them you are serious, engage with them and 80% of the time you will get better support.

The key to building good working relationships with other students is... working!!

• Find people who will contribute a similar to yourself.
• Avoid freeloaders like the plague
• Avoid lazy people
• Avoid people who distract you

Quite often the best people to work with are not the ones you socialise with after hours.

Revision is a weakness of mine, I am not good at it, so, I revised all the way through my course, a little bit at a time!

Make sure you understand what you have been taught. Then, a couple of days later go over that topic again, make sure you still understand it. Then, maybe go through it a week or two later.... now your really absorbing it!

This way what you learn will really sink in and it will be a lot easier to reacall.

The other important thing is to have good notes.

Don't be one of these do gooder types scribbling away all the time. They will never have time to read all those notes.

Like I said, absorb and understand it while its fresh.

Your notes should just be memory joggers. Use something like the Cornell Note Taking System to help organise your notes.Good notes will at a glance remind you of what you need to know, and provide page numbers, URLs etc. for the detail.Good notes are quick to write and quick to read.

Good notes are a list of ingredients, not a detailed recipe!

As you made it this far I will outline how I did my assignments, with a few extra cheats you will like ;-)

1. Use standard word template "made earlier"
2. Check I understand brief
3. Make sure I know where marks are awarded
4. Add main headings to document
5. Add sub headings to document

So, now I have my basic structure, I start to "fill in the boxes" i.e. add content to the empty headings.

Now I have a rough draft, I run it by the lecturer (who I have a good relationship with) for feedback. For professional reasons the lecturer is not going to tell me the answers... but we get on well... I know him quite well... I read between the lines. I pick up on comments he makes about related topics, and I go off and read these.

I always ask whether there is anything I have missed, whether there is anything else I need to do, whether I have understood the question properly.

Then I go back and do several more drafts.

I save each draft as I go along, particularly when deleting.

Sometimes you may want that paragraph back.

Typically I did 30+ such drafts before the finished article was ready.

Referencing and Bibliography

One of the keys to a good academic report / essay is referencing. You do not need to read the entire book to find a good reference, only the index:

• Spend an afternoon in the library
• Get a pile of relevant books

• Go through the index looking for relevant snippets
• If you find a great snippet, note the page and get the book out for further use / referencing.
• If you do not find anything of use, add the book to your bibleography

I worked on the basis that, if I had picked up the book and opened it, it was fair game for the bibliography.

Checking you have enough references.

One technique I read about (after I finished university) was to highlight all the references in a document in a different color, say make all your references red or green. Then, at a glance you can see where the are too few references.