Secrets to Improving Your Grades in Every Class
How Thinking Like a Professor Can Improve One's GPA
Oct 16, 2009
The people who tend to get the best service at restaurants are the ones who are well-known customers who have a good relationship with the employees. It should come as no surprise that a college or university is very much like any service industry, the better one knows the employees (or at least how they think and how they function), the better service one can expect. In the college classroom, better service means getting a better education and getting better grades.
A Little Psychology Can Improve Grades
Whether a teacher is a graduate assistant or a full professor, the subject matter they are teaching is (or was at one time) their all-consuming passion. They loved Literature, Biology, or History so much that they have devoted their life to it. A wise student should remember this as they sit in the classroom or in the professor's office.
It is generally not wise to demean a professor's life's passion. The best way to do this is to ask that fateful question: "When am I ever going to use this crap in the real world?" Instead, wise students act as if the teacher is really making this topic incredibly exciting. They stay awake in class and ask pertinent questions. They show interest by asking informed questions (the internet is a friend for this) about the subject after class. For instance, they are the student in Intro to Physics who asks about "'String Theory" and multiple dimensions.
Grading is Subjective – Take Advantage of It
Many teachers will try to convince students that their grading scale or method of grading is purely objective and impartial; yet, they will still leave 10% of the final grade for some category such as "class participation" or "discussions." That 10% is an entire letter grade's worth of the final grade over which the student has no control. In addition, when final grades are computed, teachers have the leeway to decide whether or not to bump a student with an 89 percent final average up that one percentage point to an A or leave them at a B. These are hardly matters of objectivity.
So, how do students take matters into their own hands? Smart students make sure their teacher knows them, in a positive light, as people rather than just another Student Identification Number. It's easy to fail a number. That chore is much harder when the teacher is tasked with failing a human being whom she has actually gotten to know and like. A smart student uses the teacher's office hours to get to know her. Wise students go to the professor's office and ask for help or clarification of points covered in class. They contribute frequently and positively in class and make sure the teacher believes they are working hard to do well in the class. All of this adds up to the student being seen as a human being with a positive image in the teacher's mind.
The Student Must Carry Their Load to Get Good Grades
The teacher-student relationship is a reciprocal one in that one will only get an equal measure out of the relationship based on how much one chooses to invest. If a student doesn't do her share of the work, no teacher is going to be persuaded to come to her rescue. Smart students regularly attend class, read the assigned texts, take good notes, study, and take advantage of any tutorial services the school has to offer. When smart students do their homework, they make sure that the finished product reflects the effort they have put in to the course.
Smart students are sure to follow directions, turn in assignments on-time, produce assignments which are as professional in appearance as possible, and, above all, they don't plagiarize. Carrying one's part of the load puts the professor on the "high ground" when she needs to justify, either to herself or to her department chair, giving the smart student that extra one or two percentage points needed for that A.
Improving grades begins with using a little simple psychology. Smart students understand that their professors want to believe that they have turned on the mind of at least one student to the vast wonder of their discipline. A smart student assumes assumes that role. A smart student also knows that she must be more than a number in today's classroom. Finally, smart students knows that they have to invest of themselves to increase their grades.
There is, however, one additional path to improving grades. Grades can also be improved by simply gaining a better knowledge of the system.
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