College Advice from J. Mark Bertrand
What college students should do to make college count:
Embrace your discipline. Take a professional interest in your major. Stop worrying about passing the test and start thinking about teaching the class.
Do more than the assigned reading. Outside reading is a way to bootstrap yourself ahead of the learning curve. Ask your teacher for recommendations.
Don’t waste your electives. Choose classes that open up other disciplines and possibilities, rather than settling for easy As.
Keep a journal. You’re taking notes already, so it may seem redundant. But a journal of your questions and thought processes is a helpful way to make connections.
Study out loud. Spend time with other students, talking about what you’re studying. Make the subject a part of your life, not something you cram for at the last minute.
J. Mark Bertrand is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway, 2007), Beguiled (with Deeanne Gist), and Back on Murder, the first in a series featuring Houston homicide detective Roland March. Pattern of Wounds, the next March novel, will be published in Summer 2011.
Read my interview with Mark about Rethinking Worldview.
Read my review of Back on Murder. (I loved it!)
I'm not the man, I'm just His representative 