New Ways to Stand Out in Class
If you’re looking for good ways to stand out in class — you’re in the right place! Looking at how you’re going to connect everything together is going to make you stand out in terms of being a great student. Standing out in class has its advantages. You’re going to need to ask these professors for recommendations sooner or later before you enter the career world. The job market can be competitive, but that’s okay — so can you!
What you will need to do in order to stand out in class is to think about what they really want you to focus on. You can get a good idea of this by looking at the professor’s website, thinking about their personal philosophies, and paying close attention during lectures. Study their body language. Are they relaxed? Do they seem to get a real kick out of some part of a lesson and not the other? You might want to check out industry magazines for your area and then send them clippings when it comes time to do so.
You have to make sure that you think about the type of approach you use. Some professors might repel from you if you’re too aggressive. Others might feel that you are truly intriguing them and they will want to cultivate you in a different way.
Show them that you are truly there to learn. When you’re in the lecture hall or in the classroom, you need to be not only taking great notes, but also giving good advice from start to finish. Good questions get you attention.
Don’t think that you have to avoid getting help in ruder to stand out. If a teacher can tell that you need help, but you don’t reach out for it, it’s going to come out sooner or later. They’re not going to really see you as a valid contender because you don’t have the confidence to be wrong. It’s okay to be wrong — it’s not okay to just assume that you never need to push forward with getting the answers you need.
This will help you stand out in class. You might even notice that your professor is looking forward to hearing from you and talking with you because you are showing them that you have a deep desire to learn. This will make recommendations easier to get, because you’ve already made a good first impression.
Take advantage of their office hours, but in a respectful manner. Come with a goal in mind, keep it short and focused, and make sure that you’re listening. Following up with a short email after you’re finished with each office visit is a good way to stay memorable.
As you can tell, these are all things that you can do on your own that don’t even cost you anything. So why don’t college students do them? Laziness. They assume that they don’t really need to worry or focus on it, so their attention goes elsewhere. You’re going to need to fight that with everything you have, because otherwise you’re going to end up getting left behind.
Why not focus as hard as you can on a bigger world for your education? Nobody is going to fall from the sky and do these things for you. So if you don’t get anything out of your college education, it’s probably because you don’t reach out for the information yourself. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but you have to put yourself in the right frame of mind. College is truly an investment — it’s up to you to figure out what type of return on that investment that you can actually get. Good luck!
