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This coming fall, first time college students will begin settling into a new normal—new freedoms, a new campus, and new academic challenges. My name is Alex Chang, and I'm a subject matter tutor with particular experience tutoring students in the so-called weed-out classes, i.e. the ones that have the reputation to make or break a student's chances in a major or a track like organic chemistry for pre-medical students, linear algebra for engineering students, and economics for political science and international relations students. In this note, I want to share my thoughts on the academic challenges of the transition to college (of which weed-out courses are prime examples), why it’s important to get an early start on studying, and why picking one class to prep for over the summer can pave the way for success across a college transcript.

Two differences between college and high school classes compound to make the college course more difficult. First, a college class covers more material in less time with fewer opportunities to practice. A quick time accounting exercise shows that college classes simply have fewer hours of instruction. Common lecture schedules, for example, include 3 50-min lectures per week or 2 75-min lectures per week, giving 2.5 hours of instruction per week. In contrast, high school classes will generally provide 5-7.5 hours of instruction per week per class. Second, college classes do not guide students’ study time. A high school class will teach a student how to drive a car, for example, by going over the basics, ensuring they practice getting into the car under supervision, before having them practice driving themselves. A college class will teach driving by lecturing on the theory of driving and letting the students figure out the practical details by themselves.

Success in college courses, then, means simultaneously mastering the course material and new ways to study—all while juggling the many other demands on time and attention that come with college. It’s natural, then, for a single “bear” of a class to create outsize demands on students’ time, which means the challenges in one class can leak over into others, compromising students’ chances of success even in classes that wouldn’t otherwise pose as much of a challenge.

In my experience helping students navigate this transition, I’ve found three key study adjustments have reliably set up my students for success not just in the first semester, but for their college careers generally:

• Practicing critical reading and notetaking. In assigned readings and lectures, not all details are important, and a common failure mode is when students try to give equal weight and attention to all details, which leads to rote memorization and mental overload. Guiding students to identify core concepts and connecting subsequent details through logical reasoning instead of memorization is vital to developing a proper model.
  
• Following and understanding mathematical derivations. The core concepts always center around a key mathematical model and its applications, so understanding how that model arises, its assumptions, and its usages become key to unlocking proficiency. Math is not optional in these courses, so not being good at math cannot be an excuse.
  
• Identifying the course’s “story arc” and motivating examples. A course is not a collection of random trivia. Appreciating how the material is tied together and how key concepts build on each other constructs a narrative that helps students retain knowledge by making disparate facts a cohesive story.
  

Developing and incorporating these skills into one’s study methods requires focus and commitment. As a result, it can be difficult to change approach when the school year is in full swing. At best, the student will have to navigate new ways of studying within a flood of new material to master. At worst, study issues will come to light through a disappointing exam grade, and the student will have to level up their study skills while playing catch up in competitive and high stakes courses.

The best answer to this challenge is simple: I recommend students identify their hardest upcoming class and get an early start with an intensive study program, designed like a college course, leading up to the school year. Summer is far and away the best opportunity to prepare for the transition to college by working with a tutor to pre-learn both course material and new frameworks for studying. Then, during the school year, the material will be easier and students have more bandwidth to focus on other classes.

Enjoy your summer and if your student is starting or enrolled in a competitive program, please do not hesitate to reach out so we can make sure they’re poised to ace their year from day one.

About the Author: Alex Chang

The ultimate STEM tutor, Alex was ranked one of the top 20 chemistry students in the US in high school before embarking on a dual Bachelor's and Master's at Stanford in Chemistry, Public Policy, and Management Science and Engineering. A self-taught software engineer, Alex engineered an app that reached #1 app in the App Store (Hopper) before joining Facebook, where he worked as a machine learning engineer and technical interviewer for four years. Yet beyond his laurels, Alex has maintained a thriving career as a tutor over the past decade, working as a TA for Econ at Stanford, designing his own high school chemistry curriculum, and tutoring high schoolers and college students across math, science, economics, and computer science. An endlessly curious personality, Alex stands out for the care he takes to learn and understand a student's thought process, the mastery he brings to even the most rigorous academic programs, and his natural good-humored affability as a responsive and caring mentor.

Subjects: Chemistry, Computer Science, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Algorithms, Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Physics, Quantum Mechanics