How to get straight A's in the Freshman Year?

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For most of us, a new semester is right ahead. Especially freshers are just ready to kick off the first semester. 
One of the most frequently asked questions by the freshers is, "How to score a 4.0 GPA?" or "How to get straight A's?"
So, to let you know the answer to this million-dollar question, I asked a Topper. He is kind enough to share the top 10 tips to get straight A's... and without further ado, let's get started... 

10 TIPS Right From The Topper

1. Learn "How to Learn"

Learning How to Learn is one of the most popular courses on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
This course will make you a more effective learner, allowing you to make the best use of your study time.

2. Learn to Read your Teacher

Observe your teachers' teaching style. Do they give questions mostly from lecture slides?  Or do they have a favorite book? Do their questions mostly rely on rote-learning or are they conceptual? 
and Then,

3. Adapt

Getting an A grade simply comes down to writing what your teacher wants to see. Hence, predicting what kind of questions the teacher will set and adapting your answers to what the teacher will like (especially for humanities/non-technical courses) are the two most important skills you need to develop.

4. Pay attention in the class

Pay attention during lectures. Observe which parts of the lecture/course the teacher emphasizes and how much time they spend on what topic. This will give you useful hints about what can come up in the exam or a quiz.

5. Explore Online courses

There are countless resources online for almost every topic you will study. Everyone learns differently but it’s almost always worthwhile to explore online for a topic that you sit down to study.

6. Be Consistent

Consistency is key. You should try to review what you studied each week on every weekend, but it’s even better if you can revise on week-days as well.  As a rule of thumb, When starting prep for a grand exam, you should have at least gone through the slides twice before.

7. Analyze 

If you want to score 4.0 in a semester, then you need to get an A in all the courses and not just the ones you like or are comfortable with. For practical reasons, it’s not possible to give 100% in each of your subjects from the first day of the semester till the last day. So,  

8. Prioritize

You will have to prioritize different courses at different points of the semester. One mistake some students make is that they keep on putting the effort into a course they’re already set to get an A in while neglecting another course which they can improve.

9. Manage your time

If you’re far ahead in a particular course, then use that to your advantage by reducing the amount of time you spend on that course and using it for a course that needs it more

10. Access yourself

After each quiz or an exam, assess where you stand in each course and allocate time for each course in the coming weeks accordingly



Special thanks to Daniyal Khalid for these useful tips to get straight A's!


You can also look over the following video on Mainly: The Software Engineering Blog youtube channel. Have a great time!

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