Saturday, first good opportunity early in the day when you have energy, skim through the next section in your science book (for example), see what the professor's going to cover Tues or Weds. Ten minutes and that's fine, or if you get on a roll, that's fine, too. The great thing about prestudying is that you can be ever so casual about it. You can move on to the next subject pretty much when you feel like it.
And you can jump to the next section even if you're not caught up! That is, you can still jump ahead.
You know how with a movie preview you can sometimes get the whole movie in three minutes? (And sometimes the preview ends up better than the movie.) Well, why can't you do that with a scientific theory? I think you can. I think you can do a pretty good job summarizing most theories in a couple of sentences. You can do this in science, as well as with most theories/ideas in literature and history.
I have the skill of diving deep. However, over the years, I have been successful at supplementing this good skill with other good skills as well.
To me, 12 semester hours is plenty full-time enough. And depending on scholarship requirements, dorm requirements, or expectations of your parents, 6 or 9 hours can also be a productive semester. Are you staying ahead so that you're getting benefit from the lecture? Are you spending just a little time towards getting a jump for next semester?
With your parents, they need to respect areas of privacy in your life and they need to respect that it's your life and your choices. And if they realize that you're different and that they're trying to "help," that can be a difficult situation. Perhaps measured disclosure is one good answer.
04 Sep 2009, 4:59 pm
