[sbballer92]

Originally Posted by Boilermaker Special

This was one of the main reasons I left Purdue; I could not understand any of my professors. They were not hired to teach students, they were hired to bring the university prestige with their research.

I remember in Calc II blatantly telling my professor in front of 200 students that it sounded like he had a cheeseburger in his mouth.

I never went to a single Calc I, II, chem, or physics lecture after the first week while I attended Purdue my freshman year. I would dedicate that 50mins to reading the book.

I had a 3.52 when I transferred down to UE, so I guess I did alright. I love this school; teachers here are paid to teach, and they all speak perfect fluent English. In fact, about 80% were UE undergrads at one time.

sorry to get off topic but I was thinking about going to purdue for engineering. Lately I heard bad things in addition to what you said. Is the problem you mentioned a common dilemma in purdue?

[Danegerous]

Originally Posted by sbballer92

sorry to get off topic but I was thinking about going to purdue for engineering. Lately I heard bad things in addition to what you said. Is the problem you mentioned a common dilemma in purdue?

You're going to run into the same problem at a lot of well-known schools unfortunately. I can't speak for purdue but here at A&M we have more than our fair share or foreign professors that are hard to understand as well.

[PaintballPat723]

Honestly, just grab an ipod and start reading. Take notes while you read and highlight important things in the book. Use different highlighters for different things. Blue for vocab. Yellow for important dates/ facts for example.

[AlphaNeo36]

Originally Posted by sbballer92

sorry to get off topic but I was thinking about going to purdue for engineering. Lately I heard bad things in addition to what you said. Is the problem you mentioned a common dilemma in purdue?

Most of the time you can understand what the foreign professors are saying but the problem is they only know enough to get by. When you ask your professor or TA to explain something, they have a very difficult time getting the point across and that's kind of the point of learning. You're going to run into this problem at every university like Purdue. Most departments have help rooms where any TA will help you out if you don't understand.

[Boilermaker Special]

Originally Posted by AlphaNeo36

Most of the time you can understand what the foreign professors are saying but the problem is they only know enough to get by. When you ask your professor or TA to explain something, they have a very difficult time getting the point across and that's kind of the point of learning. You're going to run into this problem at every university like Purdue. Most departments have help rooms where any TA will help you out if you don't understand.

disagree

Don't forget; professors don't take emails! Talk to your TA who really can't speak english!

I think it is a problem at all engineering state-schools. I had the opportunity to transfer to a private university for the same price, and I hopped on it. Only ~20 engineering professors here (4 or 5 MEs), but they only graduate ~20 MEs a year here. All the professors know your name, and sometimes they come over to your fraternity house for 50 cent beer night.

[akatch79]

Originally Posted by AlphaNeo36

I only register classes with instructors whose name is related to English. That, or I read their profiles at ratemyprofessors.com and go from there.

Not NECESSARILY a good way of doing things. My 1st semester chem TA was Russian or Eastern European and had the accent to prove it but she singlehandedly ensured that I had a B both 1st and 2nd semester (when I hired her as my tutor during my pre-finals panic). Definitely use ratemyprofessors.com though.

Originally Posted by memorex

Take notes with a pen/pencil and paper. You write down the information, read it or hear it being told to you. Do not use laptops to take notes, because there is 100% chance of you wandering off on the internet to search for useless information. This helps me out a lot, do not need to study as much. But when i do study, I just sit down, turn on music or the tv for background noise and read the notes over and over.

This, only I avoid the music and TV. Additionally, I like to take rough notes during lectures and then within 24 hours re-write them neatly in pen. Format them nicely, add diagrams if necessary, etc. If you went to a TA afterwards with a question, write down the question and the answer on the nice copy. Keep the good copy (I prefer to use a separate composition notebook for this) for the purpose of studying.

If your professor uses Powerpoint and posts the slides online or otherwise provides you with them, print them out before class and take notes on those. Don't use the slides as an excuse not to go to lecture.

[Topazbullet]

If your looking for a good self help blog on the subject, check out: http://calnewport.com/blog/category/tips-studying/

[DeathAndTaxes12]

I forgot where I learned this.

Say you're assigned a test one week in advance (if you're lucky). Study all of the material just five minutes each night, and it'll stick in your head. Some kind of study that if you do it over a course of time, it'll retain in your brain better.

Correct me if I'm wrong, fellas.

[Gatyr]

I've found that secondary sources are excellent ways of understanding things that don't come to me right off the bat. For example, when I had to read one of William Faulkner's novels, I nearly shat myself because of "prose" writing, but after searching an online database for articles on the book, I found out what Faulkner was trying to do with his writing and everything came so much easier.

This especially helps with lower-classmen taking some gen-ed philosophy class, being thrown in the deep end with Hume or Kant. Finding out what some PHD has to say about their work generally helps one understand things better.

[tater66]

Originally Posted by DeathAndTaxes12

I forgot where I learned this.

Say you're assigned a test one week in advance (if you're lucky). Study all of the material just five minutes each night, and it'll stick in your head. Some kind of study that if you do it over a course of time, it'll retain in your brain better.

Correct me if I'm wrong, fellas.

Correct-o, just basic Psychology stuff.

[rdm3000]

I do not study. I have never really tried to study. I just go to class and try not to skip and when I am there I engage in the discussion.

I have a 3.6 and am almost about to graduate.

[GrimXtk]

I learned don't miss class.

First semester of college I had an 8 am class, so I had to wake up at 6am (long drive to school). One day I thought oh this class we just reading a story, instead suprise suprise! we got to fix our midterm before she re-graded it which coulda brought me up by a letter grade!

[black_angus]

Read your material upside down, or at least parts of it. It makes you go slower and helps it be retained better, or so I've heard.

[inuyasharox4776]

I really want to start bringing a tape recorder to class, because even if I take notes once I go back to them they make no sense for me.

[Topazbullet]

If you want to do that, your better off just taking them in onenote, or using this: livescribe.com

[inuyasharox4776]

We sell those livescribe pens at target but theyre like 150$, plus you have to buy the special paper. I don't think its worth it. Plus, I'm in high school, so I can't use a laptop to take notes.

[Topazbullet]

I got one of them for free when livescribe came to our campus (cornell) cause we won some contest on facebook.

I never took notes in high school, but im weird like that i guess. Having voice recorded notes would be annoying, because you honestly are never going to use them because they are really hard to navigate if they are not tagged with anything.

There are really 2 scenarios when its beneficial to take notes at all:
Where there is some fact/example that you might want to remember/ review at some later date.

Where you synthesize some abstract idea in your own words.

You take a lot of the second sort of notes in analytic classes. You take a lot of the first in fact based classes. Having a recording of the lecture tied with your notes is really useful in this scenario, as you are then able to write down key words, and then if you review them later and forget what something meant, you can listen to the bit of lecture to jog your memory.

If you are annoyed with taking notes, try thinking more during class and then only writing down the main idea which you synthesize. Because you thought of the conclusions, you will be much more likely to remember them. In reviewing them, you will also be more likely to recall the though process that led you to arrive at the conclusion.

[jellytime]

man study the whole semester is really hectic... i got a simple solution of it... just go through the entire lectures everyday.. just read them in that way u will memorize it .. and it will certainly will not become a burden...