So for whatever reason, this semester I've begun to become more conscious of what I can and can't do well in an academic setting, although I probably couldn't tell you exactly why (hey, it's not my focus in Psych, don't blame me!).
For instance, I've become more and more aware that I do incredibly better in a discussion-style class than in a lecture class. The basic fact of the matter is if I'm not actively engaging in the material, my attention and thoughts drift away reaaaally quickly. Even if the material is fairly interesting, it'll only hold my attention for a while before I start wandering off. In contrast, classes where we're analyzing information or actually discussing ideas grabs my attention well and the time seems to fly by in class. Perhaps the best examples have been my lit class this semester and my philosophy class last--most of the the time during the discussion I'm engaged and participating, but as soon as the professor begins lecturing for more than 5 minutes I feel myself drifting. I thought perhaps taking notes would alleviate this, but my Theory of Personality class has proven this fact wrong. I suspect it's because deep-down, I feel like being lectured is helping me out almost exactly as much as reading a textbook, and my reading speed far exceeds the speed at which teachers lecture. This similar extends to paper writing--I dislike literature reviews a lot, and actually often enjoy analytical papers, since I feel like I'm working instead of regurgitating information from books. Regardless, I'll definitely be keeping this in mind as I choose classes next year, and is a key reason I wish to do a year-long empirical thesis instead of a one semester lit review, despite the theoretical difference in workload.
Another aspect I've come to terms with is my sleep schedule. I'm perfectly capable of going to sleep early and getting up also early (like this weekend where I slept from 12am-8am, surprisingly) but I simply don't function as well, I feel like. Rather than fighting this I've sort of given up and taken my odd sleep schedule, and mostly afternoon classes. This is after several semesters, including this one, where I've had morning classes that also--you guessed it-- were lecture based courses. Not an ideal combination. This year I've realized I can keep my wacky sleep schedule and still do well in classes, so at the moment I don't see any striking reason to try and "normalize" my habits in this regard (although I may regret this come summer).
The last kind of odd realization has come with public speaking, or more specifically presentations. I have noticed that over the years that I've been getting progressively better, both in speaking ability and lack of nervousness (although I naturally still have room to improve). I thought this was an across-the-board improvement, but then I had a "debate" in my philosophy class last semester, where I went back to being kind of nervous and not speaking quite as well, which was apparently perceptible to my audience. This is quite odd, since given at the conference I attended yesterday I presented a project to large number of individuals, giving a clear speech and engaging with the attendees in a friendly manner (or so I presume). My first thought was perhaps it was knowledge of the material; I obviously knew my own project perfectly, and while I had devised my own arguments for the debate, they weren't as internalized as other facts. Conversely, though, I've given plenty of other presentations on subjects without having any difficulty. I've come to the conclusion that it has to do mostly with pure memorization--with the debate, I was going off notes and trying to present a concise, ordered argument with extremely specific details. In other presentations, especially with powerpoints and such, all I need to know is the material in general, and I can touch bases with prompts in order to stay on target while still remaining somewhat fluid and flexible. It's a very fine and distinct difference, and one that I'm still not entirely sure of, but it's the only explanation I have so far.
Anyway, that's my personal experiences, and I'm curious to hear others' stories. Expect a few more academic-related posts in the near future since I've been thinking about a couple different things.
-HTMC
I definitely know what you mean about getting engaged with discussions. My biochem class right now is featuring a discussion period every few days each centering around two biochem articles-- what would ordinarily be very long, dreary reading becomes interesting when you're arguing about it with your fellows.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in the spirit of Better Living Through Chemistry, have you ever tried ingesting tons of caffeine before a lecture you typically find boring? I find for myself that it's a sort of feedback loop:
Dozing --> stopped paying attention to the material --> can't understand the material now due to stuff I wasn't paying attention to earlier--> SO BORED--> Dozing.
It's surprising how much more interesting stuff becomes when you've got caffeine flowing through your veins.