Developing Your Skills

Kerri didn’t need to study in high school. She made good grades, and her friends considered her lucky because Kerri never seemed to sweat exams or cram. In reality, Kerri did her studying during school hours, took excellent notes in class, asked great questions, and read the material before class — all of these are excellent strategies. Kerri just seemed to do them without much fuss.

Then when they got to college, those same skills weren’t always working as well. Sound familiar? Kerri discovered that, for many classes, she needed to read paragraphs and textbook passages more than once just to understand the content. Her notes from class sessions were longer and more involved — the subject material was more complicated and the problems more complex than she was used to.

It makes sense that the better you are at studying and preparing, the better results you’ll see in the form of grades and long-term learning and knowledge acquisition. And the more experience you have using your study and memorization skills and employing success strategies during exams, the better you’ll get at it. But you have to keep it up — maintaining these skills and learning better strategies as the content you study becomes increasingly complex is crucial to your success.

Once you transition into a work environment, you will be able to use these same skills that helped you be successful in college as you face the problem-solving demands and expectations of your job.