Can you believe it? Midterm 1 season has already begun! It seemed just a couple weeks ago that we were all making New Year's Resolutions and settling into the new semester. I am sure that most of you are taking harder courses compared to last semester. But that's okay! Don't stress. I remember being in the same position, faced with the tensions and nerves of taking Introduction to Organic Chemistry. But you'll realize that the challenge is great and will push you to think more critically than before. You'll realize that once you've convinced yourself that your harder courses and material are only going to help you become more intelligent, studying will no longer become a burden.

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Posted by Jenny Zhang at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Midterms can be hectic and stressful for students, especially the first midterms of the semester when you are still getting used to a class and a Professor’s teaching style. So to better prepare you for upcoming exams here are some study tips to help you succeed in your classes.

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Posted by Olga at 2:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are many difficult classes at Berkeley that we all have to struggle through. It is almost a right of passage for the science majors to take Organic Chemistry and Bio 1A, but it wasn't until I took my Environmental Modeling requirement, Energy and Resources 102, that I really met a challenge. Some people went through this class very easily, but I had never taken a subject where I had to draw on all of my knowledge gained from the big Chemistry and Calculus classes. I had to answer questions such as: “What would the pH of rain be in the absence of anthropogenic sources of sulfuric and nitric acids?” and “If the burning of fossil fuels were to cause the CO2 concentration in Earth’s atmosphere to become twice what it was at the beginning of the industrial revolution, how would Earth’s surface temperature be affected?” The problem sets became my third job as I began to spend and average of ten or more hours a week on them. So how did I deal with this difficult material? Here are some tips!

Continue reading "Dealing with Challenging Classes" »

Posted by Liz Dow at 9:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The most difficult class for me at CAL was MCB 102. I took that course my first semester and it really hit me. Personally, I didn't know what to expect when I transferred here. Although it might have been wiser to take a lighter/"easier" course load that semester, taking MCB 102 was a great learning experience. The class was fast paced with the amount of material I had to learn and to what level the professors wanted me to understand the material via exams. I initially didn't worry much until I took the first midterm. I was so devastated when I saw the grade. It was even more depressing when I saw the class distribution and noticed that my score was near the end of the scale. To make it worse, my second midterm score wasn't any better. I begin to question my intelligence and whether I was worthy of coming to Berkeley.

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Posted by Rebekah Kim at 10:48 PM | Permalink

To all of those celebrating new years, Happy New Year!

So classes officially began two weeks ago, and it has been busy since. Here’s a few tips to keep up in those general chemistry, biology, and physics classes, all of which were difficult to conquer, but I did survive my first two years of college.

1. Attend lectures, whether in person or via webcast. Webcast is such a great tool (except it’s on Real Player, but the EST people are working on it), but you have to have enough discipline to watch them. Watch it with a friend or try setting a specific time in the day to watch them. Just try not to cram it into the final hours before an exam, but if that works for you, go for it.

Continue reading "Tips for Success in Classes" »

Posted by Irene Liao at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)