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Congratulations on your choice to join our academic community. It may seem
trite, but it is true and merits noting: If you play your cards right, your time
at SMU can be among the best years of your life and the springboard to things
imagined and currently unknown. Playing those cards right, though, requires a
great deal from you. You are no longer in high school, and the academic
transition you are about to make will require you to bear down, refocus, and
rededicate yourself to your studies.
You have matriculated at SMU, but you are a high school student taking a first step. It is on you to learn to be a college student. To do this successfully, you need to understand the surface differences between high school and college and know the expectations your faculty have for you.
Superficially, the classroom part of college looks a lot like high school. Though you aren’t scheduled all day, you go to a specific room on a regular basis and listen to and occasionally discuss with a teacher. However, beneath the surface similarities swim the sharks of academic distress.
SMU will open an enormous range of opportunities to you; the onus, though, is on you to take advantage of them. In a very real sense, you now are responsible for constructing your academic life for yourself. The professors with whom you take your class work have expectations for you that may be different from those you've experienced before.
- Unlike in high school, your attendance may not be monitored. This “freedom” – should
I stay or should I go? – can be seductive and dangerous. Studies
show, and common sense suggests, that regular class attendance is a strong
indicator
of succeeding in the class.
- You may not have taken extensive lecture notes in high school. Not doing
so in
college is an invitation to disaster. College professors do not “lecture
out of
the textbook”; in fact, they may seldom reference the text. The only way
to be
sure you capture what professors say in class – and realize they
are saying it
because it seems important to them, and they are the experts – is
to take copious and extensive notes. This will keep you focused, and it will
provide you
with a road map to the minds of your professors. They will expect you to know
what they discussed in class.
- After a class – in your next block of free time – read
over and complete (annotate) your notes. You’ll remember the ideas and phrases
you didn’t have a
chance to write down during class much more clearly the day of the lecture than
you will days – or weeks – later. The better
you know what went on in class, the better you will understand the material and
the better you will do in the class.
- You may not have seen your teachers outside of class much when you were in
high school. SMU professors will expect you to take the initiative and visit
them during office hours. Don’t just go in to see them when you think you are in
trouble in their courses; see them before there is trouble. Talk to them,
outside of class, about the course, your interests, and their interests. From
these office chats often come intellectual epiphanies. High school is about
learning in the classroom; college is about learning from all you do.
- Know all of your professors’ names and office hours by the end of your first
week in class, and make a point of seeking them out.
- College work often is significantly different from what you had in high school. In addition, the expectations that professors have for you is different. These differences extend to scheduling, papers, examinations, participation, and grades. Academic success in high school will only translate to academic success in college if you adjust to the expectations of your faculty.
To have academic success in college, and to keep the vistas of your evolving life as broad as you want them to be, you need to take the skills you practiced successfully as a high school student and build on them to become a successful college student. This process – reinventing yourself as a college student – needs to be done over the course of your first year of studies, and you need to start on it now.
SMU provides abundant sources of academic support, from the regular meetings with your Academic Adviser, to the Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center, to the Central University Library System, to your professors and peers. The responsibility for your education, however, rests ultimately on you. Two, three, or four years after you step on campus for the first time, it is too late in the day to begin to seize that responsibility. Hit the ground running: use AARO, Academic Advisers, Week of Welcome, and the facilities we provide to you to begin your college career in a way that will allow you to end it in the manner you wish.
Academics are central to why you are here ... who we think you are ... and who you want to be. You have four years. Make the most of them. We will give you a tremendous amount of support, but you have to take advantage of it. We expect you to do so. Now your success is on you.
