Don DeVaul

For the Freshman Class of 1998/1999, I bequeath the three most important factors in developing a successful strategy to combat the mass confusion of beginning life as a college student. In time, these techniques will become part of the everyday thought process. The Survival Kit (chapters1-4), the 10 Memory Principals, and the strategies for test taking are tools that you will use throughout your career at MTSU, or any educational system. "Make no mistake; this is not high school, but a job. How well this job is completed depends on how will you master the use of the tools what will be presented in the Developmental Study Skills class.

This first tool will help organize and give direction to all the campus resources. The Survival Kit will be presented in the first four chapters of the Practicing Study Skills-Strategies for Success workbook. These chapters will become the foundation, in which as freshman, your new job skills will be taught and honed to a sharp functional edge. The first day in class (the construction site) you will be introduced to the crewmembers (fellow students). Two ideas that should be realized quickly are, you cannot do this job alone, and use the advantage of the co-workers around you. Remember two heads are better than one! The absolute best way to learn new information is not in reading, or in studying. Though both are essential to understanding, but by teaching what you have learned to the co-workers around you are relearning the material for yourself. This beginning instruction course will explain, why and how to take notes effectively. Develop a ledger of the different campus resources and class information. How to calculate your grade point average. What a syllabus is and how to use it effectively and efficiently. Complete a self-evaluation on the academic strengths and weaknesses, while using your strengths to your advantage. How to set and achieve effective specific goals, for both the short term and long term. And finally, how to create a personalized study area, that is conductive to studying. And also to know what your new responsibilities as a student are.

The second keys to successful strategy in the class are the 10 memory principals. These 10 principals must be etched in the mind. For these will always be a major key to success. Here then is the first glimpse of the building blocks of that will become a firm foundation to support you academic goals: 1) Interest 2) Intent to Remember 3) Meaningful Organization 4) Association 5) Recitation 6) Basic Background 7) Mental Visualization 8) Consolidation 9) Distributed Practice and 10) Selectivity. I urge you to learn and make these principals essential tools of you new trade.

The last, but no less important, test taking strategies. The comparison might be used of this tool as a firewall in the education building that is being built by you, though this tool should only be used in emergency situations. There are certain tendencies in all tests and quizzes that once learned can perhaps push a grade up a level (89-90). This strategy is not broached til the end of the term. You may ask why? Simply put, there is no better strategy that KNOWING the material being covered. The professors (in their infinite wisdom) know that an educated guess is better than a guess. This action disproves the theory all instructors, teachers, and work that needs to be completed, consider them to be the foreman of the job at hand. The information on the test taking strategies can be found in chapters 8&9 of your workbook. To conclude, I believe I can guess what some freshmen are thinking about the developmental courses. This class is for the slow minded and the handicapped! I state firmly-WRONG! The Survival Kit, the 10 memory principals, and the test taking strategies are only three of the many tools that will be needed to convert the high school mentality that has been drilled into you the four years prior. Your teachers them were responsible for what and how much was to be learned. Now, as new freshman, the rules have changed, YOU are now responsible for what, how much, and how well the material will be learned. This is the job you have been effectively hired to achieve. How well you do in the developmental courses, determines how effectively you meet the challenge of future courses.