Sherrie Nist-Olejnik - College Rules!, 3rd Edition: How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College

To our husbands, Steve and Doug, and to our children,
Kama, Maia, and Sam, with love.

Copyright 2002, 2007, 2011 by Sherrie Nist-Olejnik and Jodi Patrick Holschuh

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.

Front cover photography by iStockphoto (clockwise from upper left): RichVantage, DenisTangneyJr, YinYang, luoman, gregobagel, ferrantraite, lisapics, nico_blue.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the second edition as follows:
Nist-Olejnik, Sherrie, 1946
College rules! : how to study, survive, and succeed in college / Sherrie
Nist-Olejnik, and Jodi Patrick Holschuh. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. College student orientationUnited States. 2. Study skillsUnited
States. 3. College studentsUnited StatesConduct of life. I. Holschuh,
Jodi. II. Title.
LB2343.32.N57 2007
378.198dc22 2006101169

eISBN: 978-1-60774-017-9

First edition cover and text design by Susan Van Horn
Third edition cover design by Katy Brown
Third edition interior design by Colleen Cain

v3.1

For Sherrie Nist-Olejnik, the third edition of College Rules!written after retirementrepresents a career-spanning culmination of her many interactions with mentors, colleagues, students, and teachers. For Jodi Holschuh, this bookwritten right after she moved to a new town and a new universityrepresents a fresh means to put into practice the research on college-student learning that she had been reading about and conducting. One professor emerita, one associate professorneither would have been able to accomplish her goal of writing College Rules! without the help and support of many individuals.

First, our heartfelt thanks to Barbara Collins-Rosenberg, our agent, who encouraged us to update College Rules! with the most current information on college learning.

Second, thanks to everyone at Ten Speed Press, especially editors Lisa Westmoreland and Ashley Thompson and designer Colleen Cain, who in various and wonderful ways helped spruce up College Rules! for its readers.

Third, theres not a thank you big enough for our mentors, colleagues, and teachers, both past and current, who taught us to be teachers, researchers, writers, and questioners. These individuals, although too numerous to mention, also gave us the self-confidence and skills to be successful in the sometimes treacherous world of academe.

Fourth, a special thanks to Dr. Deborah Martin, Dr. Ian Lukas, and Dr. David Zehr for allowing us to share parts of their syllabi with our readers (and their potential future students) and to Dr. Janet Frick for sharing some sad-but-true stories. Many, many thanks to Dr. Douglas Holschuh, Dr. Denise Domizi, Dr. Sherry Clouser, and Dr. David Caverly for their help and insights on . Their collective wisdom was invaluable.

Fifth, this book could not have existed without our students. We have learned as much from themeven more, perhapsthan they have ever learned from us. For both of us, teaching and other interactions with students continue to breathe new life into our research and other writing. It adds meaning to what we do and on many a day simply makes us smile.

Sixth, thanks go to our parents, Charlene and Roy Miller and Mary and Stanley Patrick, who instilled in us the love and pleasure of learning. Their curiosity and love of learning helped us recognize these characteristics in ourselves. For that, we are eternally grateful.

But most of all, we thank our spouses and children: Steve and Kama; Doug, Maia, and Sam. Our husbands, Steve Olejnik and Doug Holschuh, encouraged us to write this book and believed in our idea that if students knew how to learn in college right from the start, they would ultimately have an easier and more enjoyable college experience. Our children, Kama, Maia, and Sam, had very different roles. Kama drew on her college and work experiences to offer advice and guidance. Maia and Sam helped us remember the beginnings of learning in schoollearning to read, taking speed math tests, spellingboth the good and the, well, not so great. They make the learning process seem transparent and funwhich is what we hope for you in college.

We introduce you to College Rules! by telling you some of our deep, dark, secretsthe confessions of two professors who (in all honesty) didnt have the most stellar beginnings as college students. For the first year-and-a-half of college, each of us held our breath when grades came out at the end of the term; we were clueless about what it took to be successful students. We both felt guilty about our lack of attention to schoolworkwe did sort of want to learn somethingbut not guilty enough to make any real changes. But did we have fun! If we could have earned grades in social life, both of us would have made A+s.

Sherrie began to turn things around when she received an ultimatum from her dad. She remembers his words clearly: Im not paying for Csor worseanymore. You made good grades in high school; you either do better in college or you come home. Talk about a dose of reality. It had never occurred to Sherrie, who had always done well in school, that she might not make it in college unless she made some real changes. It had never occurred to her that she had to discipline herself and rethink the way she approached learning. The possibility of having to return home without a degree in hand was a big wake-up call.