Maximising your Learning Opportunities

Abstract

If you do little else during your time at university, it is essential that you read and understand the principal chapters in the books on your course, those that form the basis of each of your lecture courses. In most cases this will mean a particular chapter in several books dealing with a particular subject. This may sound simplistic: you might be thinking, ‘of course I will read the books, that is what I have come to university to do’. However, most graduates could tell you of the chapter that they fully intended to master throughout their course and never quite got around to reading. Sometimes the problem is simply one of identifying the chapters in a particular book that are essential. If you are studying mathematics, the situation may be quite simple. You will be expected to learn a number of proofs of theorems in a set amount of time, and the variation of mathematical proofs between textbooks is much less than the variation of the presentation of topics in other subjects. If you are studying biology, things might not be so simple, since there are many ways of explaining how biological systems work. You will still be given a reading list, but you will be expected to decide which textbook explains things in the most appropriate way for you.KeywordsLearn OpportunityFellow StudentShopping TripReading ListTechnology DegreeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.