I am not posting a whole bunch of tips, just tips that actually worked for me.  So for my second semester my average went up by 7% by making some big changes.  Some changes were probably too much for me, and I didn’t follow through, but some I did, and they definitely helped me.

1.  Check out your classes before hand!  If it’s one of those courses with a lot of sections, try and choose the professor who’s grading scheme fits you best.  Eg.  When I was chosing a Math 103 prof, i checked every prof’s grading scheme, and when I saw one professor doing some weird online thing for grades, and the other doing clickers, I chose the clickers!  And checking ratemyprof is helpful but not COMPLETELY reliable.  It does help you get the gist of the professor.  I really liked my Math professor’s grading scheme, some quizzes to keep me on my toes, labs were 10% :D, etc.

2.  GO to OTHER lectures.  I actually said this during christmas break on a post.  I said it’s something I wanted to do, and thought would help..and it did.  I did this for math 103, only because I couldn’t do it for chem or bio(timetable conflicts).  But even though most people do worse in math 103, i went up 15% from first semester math to second semester math.  So a big jump.  I can honestly say that the extra lectures contributed, especially because I set it up in a way that I was having math every single day.  It also helped to reaffirm things, and most of all, each professor has their strengths, and if one professor was weak on a certain subject, the other professor seemed to be strong.  My professor was Rolfsen, and my extra class was taught by Christoph Hauert.

3.  Go to Office Hours.  Going to office hours helps.  It’s amazing how so many students are in a lecture, and how few of them come to office hours.  Even if you know your stuff, in office hours I was able to find out about things to come before others, and also got a lot of things cleared up.

4. Take practice tests.  I am the queen of practice tests.  I have about 5 billion for each first year course.  So if your a first year in science, and want something that WILL help you, contact me, and I will happily send them your way.  For my first chem midterm I did the pratice test posted online + about 7 others that I had found.  Result:  My highest midterm grade EVER.

5.  Dont get caught up with your great midterm grades…and start slacking off.  After chem I was too confident, and Biol140 started distracting me and getting in the way (I regret putting so much time into this horrible course) and I for some reason put Bio 140 in higher priority and fell off the Bio 112, Math  103 and Chem 123 trains.  Thus my downfall…I did well my second semester, I am very proud of how much I improved.  But I do wish I wasn’t in Bio 140, I have a feeling my average would be atleast 4% higher.

6.  Take some time for yourself.  Sometimes constant focus on work will suck up all the energy you have…and then finals hit.  You want to have gotten the fun out of the way when you have to study for finals.  So don’t be the person in the library from 9am to 1am monday through sunday.

EDIT: NOTE TO EVERYONE..just remembered this, the average for Chem 233 in the summer was 70! 70!!!  First years out there, if you can take chem 233 in the summer with Jackie Stewart.  *sighh*

University is an experience you remember for life.  You learn in the classroom, and out.  You study hard with hopes of reaching your dream career.  And sometimes your dream career, like mine, requires stellar grades.  These stellar grades are easier to get at different schools.  UBC is definitely not one of those inflation crazy schools.  Stanford for example, is known for having a lot of grade inflation.  UBC doesn’t necessary have too much grade deflation, and it’s not difficult to do well at UBC, it is however hard to do great.  And those people doing great, I applaud, and I think a lot of future entrepeneurs, surgeons, and top lawyers are going to come out of UBC.  Now sometimes if you want your GPA to be a little better, people like to throw in some easy electives in there, and hope that it bumps their GPA.  This does backfire sometimes, your so comfortable with your easy elective, that you forget about it, and it ends up screwing up your GPA.  Chem 123 was this for me.  After my amazing first midterm, I thought it’d be my GPA bump course, but it ended up being my lowest grade 🙁

What is the first thing I usually get from people when I say I want a couple easy electives?  University is for learning, and taking courses that interest you, and enjoying them.  I completely agree, studying at a world class university is a great opportunity, but I personally think, if I enjoy the class AND it’s a gpa bumper then its perfect.  Bio121 was one of my favorite courses last year, the teacher was funny, and I was genuinely interested by all the things I learned.  I learned so much, that I never knew before, but it was my lowest grade.  The whole, ‘you do well in what interests you’ doesnt always work.  Bio 112 on the other hand, far less interesting, but I did far better in the course.

I want to go to med school.  And many people have asked me why I chose UBC if I wanted this.  Apparently, medical schools don’t consider the difficulty of your school when considering grades.  Hypothetically a A at Langara and an A at UBC are of equal value.  Langara is a good school, but UBC is more competitive.  So sometimes I wonder if I chose UBC based on pride like, ‘yeah I go to UBC :)’ But I also chose UBC because it’s a beautiful school, lots of resources, and it’s in a great city.  When I hear that I’m hurting my chances by going to a more difficult school, it annoys me.  So why not HELP myself and take some GPA bumping courses??

University is about the experience, but everyone has different life goals.  I want to be a doctor.  And I chose a difficult school to do great in.  After attending UCLA, I can honestly say I worked 10 times harder at UBC, and my grades were worse.  Whether that’s fair or not is not the point.  The fact is to get into med school, you need to be amazing.  So why not take courses you enjoy and also try and make them easy electives?  Especially when you have the core science courses already dragging you down.