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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Top Ten Tips for Success at University

Location, location, location...
Serious about getting work done? Find a good location. Use the libraries, study rooms, or empty classrooms.

Make It a Habit: Do Coursework Every Day
Cramming is not conducive to understanding and retaining large amounts of information. Time on your courses each day is the best way to learn. Use the time between classes to stay on top of readings.

Help Exists! Seek It Out and Improve Your Grades
Whether you're an 'A' student or a 'D' student, you can strengthen your skills. Check out SDC's Learning Skills Services. Get to know your professors and tutorial assistants. Use study guides and help centres.

Write It Down
Use a day planner or wall calendar. Plan time for coursework. Plan ahead for assignments and exam periods.

Get Energized - Eat, Exercise, Sleep
Fatigue and stress weaken memory and comprehension. Eat properly, exercise regularly, and get adequate sleep.

Perform Like a Pro: Go to Class Prepared and Take Thorough Notes
Don't miss class. Someone else's notes aren't going to be as good as having gone to the lecture yourself. While taking notes, listen for emphases and examples. Questions after the lecture? Go to your professor's or tutorial assistant's office hours. Learn as you go and you won't find yourself unprepared the night before an exam.

Lectures and Textbooks: What's the BIG Picture?
University learning requires understanding how pieces of information fit together to form a "big picture." Use course outlines, tables of content, and headings and subheadings to organize information.

Do Something to Remember Key Information
Be active! Generate examples, create mnemonics, make summary notes, identify key words, highlight textbooks, or add margin notes. Improve your memory by being creative and interested.

Think You'll Remember Key Points? Prove It.
No matter how well you understand something, without practice forgetting will occur. Before a test, recall information without looking at notes or textbooks and by doing practice questions.

Be Test Smart
Don't lose marks because of test-writing errors. Use strategies to tackle different types of tests (e.g., multiple-choice). Read instructions, budget time to marks, and do less difficult questions first to build confidence.

5 Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back

"A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!"