Skills common to all successful biology majors include: time management; self regulation; and personal discipline. If you ask your fellow biology major students who consistently earn high grades how they study and manage their time you may be surprised at their commitment to time management and self regulation.
Students who are motivated to excel will develop the personal discipline required to learn effective time management and practice self regulation. It’s common for students to spend six hours a week outside of class and lab studying introductory biology.
Useful activities include:
- Reading text before lecture and lab
- Turning off phones during lectures and personal study times
- Attending every lecture
- Re-writing class notes
- Maximizing use of online learning and assessment activities sponsored by the course
- Maintaining a list of confusing points encountered while re-writing notes and studying
- Resolving confusing points daily by contacting tutors, teaching assistants and instructors
- Creating an outline from your re-written class notes
- Creating a glossary of terms and concepts that are memorized, etc.