I will make the following suggestions for how you can do well in this course. 1) Keep up. Do NOT fall behind. We cover a lot of material each week (about 1 chapter). Read the chapter and notes we will be covering that week before coming to lecture. Just skim over it to get an idea of what we will be covering. You do not have to try to understand it at that point but it will help you follow what I will be doing in class. After I've covered the material in class then you will want to read it again. However, this time you want to take it slowly and try to understand what you are reading (see "5" below). I call this "critically analyzing" the material. This means you want to read the material carefully, looking at tables, figures, graphs, etc. when they are referred to in the text. Try to understand how the numbers in the tables are being used in examples and what the figures and graphs are showing. You will be asked to use figures and graphs in the lab and questions on the quizzes and exams. You really need to study the material more than once before a quiz or an exam. If you attempt to "study" only the night before a quiz or a few days before an exam you will more than likely not do well, or not as well as you can. I have found that the reason most people do not do well on exams is not because they are simply nervous about not doing well (test anxiety). They are nervous because they "know" (at least subconsciously) they don't really understand the material as well as they should. When you really and truly know the material you can walk in to take a quiz or exam with confidence and tell yourself that you will do well. Then you won't be so nervous and you will do fine. 2) Do ALL the homework I assign, at the very least. Most people do more than what I assign to make sure they do well. Make sure you understand the material and YOU can do the homework on your own w/o depending on my solutions or looking at examples. I suggest doing homework as we go along in class. This means if I've covered 5 sections (e.g. 13.1-13.5) during a lecture you should read them and do the homework for those sections before the next lecture. Do NOT try to sit down on one day of the week and do a whole chapter at once. You will NOT learn it well enough that way. You will think you have but you really will not have. You should take it a section at a time. Read a section in the book (yes, you should read the book). Do the examples w/in the section, trying not to look at the solution unless you absolutely have to. Give yourself a few minutes of really thinking about the problem before giving up and looking at the solution. Then try the practice exercise (the answers to these are included below the question). Work through each section like this. Then when you are done with the section go to the back of the chapter and do the homework problems that pertain to that section. Again, really try to do these on your own and try not to look at the answers in the back of the book or my solutions unless you have to. Even if you get the correct answer it is a good idea to look at my solutions to make sure you really did it the "best" way. I often include comments and hints on how to make the problem easier. After finishing the chapter in this fashion you should have a pretty good understanding of the material. If not you may need to do a few extra problems in the book or from the study guide. The study guide is not required but I highly recommend it. It has additional explanations and examples and drill problems. It also has the answers to ALL problems in your textbook. You should pretend like you have a quiz every week, just like you would if we had recitation every week. This means you would be reviewing material the day before. Essentially, pick a day each week to review the material from the previous week. Make it toward the end of the week (Thur or Fri). Review the material from the week before (which you should have finished the weekend before). If you had a quiz each week it would generally cover the material from the previous week. Skim back over the sections from the previous week and go to the end of the chapter and try to do 3-4 questions from each section. Time yourself and try to answer the questions as quickly as you can. You could even try some of the questions from the "Additional Exercises" at the end of the chapter. They don't indicate what section they're from but they are in the order of the sections. The night before a quiz you should pick 3-4 questions from each section at the back of the chapters or the study guide and make sure you can still do them. This should be the 3rd time you are looking at the material, NOT the first. Some students save the questions in the "Additional Exercises" at the end of the chapter for their review. The weekend before the exam you should review the material. Again, try to do a couple of problems from each section of homework or similar problems. 3) Take the practice exam (to be available on the web) as if it is a real exam. Give yourself 70 minutes and skip around like you would on the real exam. When you are done, see what questions you missed or even got right but weren't really sure about. Then go back to the book and notes and go over this material again. There will be a review before each exam. Try to do the practice exam before coming to the review and be prepared to ask questions. 4) Come and ask questions. You can ask the TAs or me. If you ask the TAs or someone else and still aren't sure about the answer feel free to come ask me. I'm sure you've heard the saying "Get it straight from the horse's mouth". Remember, I'm the horse. Do NOT be afraid to come and ask questions. The only stupid thing you can do in this course is to not seek help when you need it. You are only hurting yourself by not getting help. 5) This course is not like most others you've taken before. This is not a course that you can read the material the night before and do well on the quizzes and exams. Think of it in the following way. Many of you participated in sports or music while in high school. I doubt when the teacher/coach showed you how to do something you were immediately able to do it flawlessly. You first had to practice to get it right. You didn't practice it just once. You practiced all the time before getting it right. Also, usually you didn't practice the whole music piece or play the first time. The teacher/coach usually broke it down into smaller parts and you learned and practiced these smaller parts several times before putting them all together into the final product. Then you practiced this several times. It's the same way with studying this material or anything for that matter. Don't try to learn it all at once. Break it down into smaller pieces (sections) and do them over a period of time before trying to put it all together before an exam. Probably, about 85-90% of what you learn is learned on your own by studying and practicing (doing homework). You can not expect to learn things by simply listening to someone else or watching them do examples. You didn't learn to ride a bike by simply watching someone else. You had to try it for yourself a few times before you were able to do it well. That's even more true for the material you will be learning in this course. 6) How much time should you put into this course in addition to the time you spend in class? For math and science courses the rule of thumb is 3 hours per credit hour (just for lecture material, about 4 hours if you include lab). Since this is really a 5 credit hour course (although you only get 4 credits) you should be putting in at least 21 hours per week outside of class (sometimes closer to 20 hours). Those 21 hours will usually include about 3 hours per week for lab and writing lab reports (again, sometimes more). This means you will be spending about 18 hours per week studying lecture material. The 18 hours should not be done only on the weekend. You should try to spread it out over the entire week. The best way is to spend about 2.5-3 hours per day and spread things out over 7 days a week. If you want to work only 5 days a week you will need to spend about 3.5-4 hours per day. However, the more time you spend in a single day the less likely it is you will learn it properly. You can not learn this information over a 2 or 3 day period each week. It will not sink in properly. You will not be prepared properly for quizzes or exams. Even with this you don't want to spend more than about 1 hour at a time. Many studies have shown that most people can only spend about 1 hour on this type of material before their concentration levels wane. Once you aren't concentrating on what you are doing you will not learn it properly. You will not be prepared properly for quizzes or exams. Some of you may be able to put in a little less time and some may have to put in more. However, I would say the 18 hours per week is what you should plan on. This is time in ADDITION to time you spend in class.