General College Success/Responses to Other College Entities
Who Needs to Build Word Capital? We All Do! Here’s One Way…
(A bonus Friday post! My second book review! This wasn’t a genre of books I intended to review, but stay with me and see why I enthusiastically put these gems in my queue!) Full disclosure: I never took the SAT. I took the ACT back in high school and didn’t do so well. I took the GRE before grad school and let’s just say that it’s a good thing that my grad school entry wasn’t contingent on a high score (Just to save face here, I did beautifully in grad school). I’m a troubled test-taker and maybe some of you are, too. A while ago, I mentioned some books that are designed for skill building in the vocabulary portion of the SAT. Now...
Read MoreFive Must-Say Tips for Week One of College Classes
(Wow! I can’t thank everyone enough for the ongoing support for the grade dispute posts and also the incredible feedback for the post about college success tips not to take. I figured it would be a good idea to twist the latter topic to what college students should do now that we’re nice and early in back-to-school, so read on!) During my fifth visit to Women’s View Radio, I was recently had this call-in question, “What are the first steps that a student should take when going to college?” I’m sure that others’ answers would vary, depending on if you are living on or off-campus, if you’ve left home, etc., but as a prof, my...
Read MoreAnother Grade Dispute: When an A Isn’t Really an A
Here we go again! Remember the grade dispute that turned into a four-part series? How could you forget, right? Well, another interesting write-in, this time from a student at a major university. A different situation and for the sake of anonymity, I’m going to heavily paraphrase, but keep the general theme. One other note: At the end of this piece, I found an interesting link written by an attorney about “legally sound syllabi.” Very interesting! Are you ready? Let’s go…) Before I start with this student’s situation, I want to make a huge plea to all students reading this blog. Whether you are just starting college or you are knee-deep...
Read MoreFive College Success Tips You Don’t Have To Take
Back-to-school advice is ramping up all over the place. There are some fabulous tips out there and others that I quite frankly find worrisome. I thought I’d knock out a quick post to respond to five of them: 5. Figure out what topics are important to your profs because those topics end up on tests. I find it very hard to believe that a freshman, or even seasoned college students, can decipher what information is “important” to a prof in the confines of an hour-long (or even longer!) lecture. If you asked me to pick out the most important material within my hour-long lesson, I would say, “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t be...
Read MoreWhat to Say When You Have to Retake a Class
(I wasn’t expecting to write more in the #unbroken series quite so soon, but this post seems appropriate as we move ever closer to August when many students start school. I know some students will be revisiting classes that they’ve started once before. This post is for you.) You walk into your American Literature class. You want to get excited about it. You enjoy writing. Or maybe you don’t, but you’re at least glad that it’s a new term. But for every mental rah-rah you’ve attempted, there’s just no getting around this fact: You aren’t there because you want to be. You’re there because you have to be. You took this class...
Read MoreAn Unbroken Update, “Elevating” Your Words & Public Speaking
(I realized with the summer here–yes, in Seattle now, too!–I’m actually liking these shorter, list-y posts a little bit. So, I’m going to go for it again! A light update from the week and I’ll be back with a meatier post next Tuesday!) -First, a sweet update from my unbroken post: Remember that I couldn’t run, but another friend could? Well, that friend is a total expert at something that I’ve never done before, but have always wanted to do. And, just four days after the race, when I was still feeling so broken, the friend helped me realize a goal that I could attain: Planting a garden. I’ve typically relied on my husband...
Read MoreBuy the Book!
In Say This, NOT That to Your Professor: 36 Talking Tips for College Success, an award-winning, tenured communication professor takes you “inside the faculty mind...Click here to Buy on Amazon
A tenured professor of Communication Studies helps students correctly--not cluelessly--speak/deal with those who teach them.
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