David Wyld - College Success 101: A Professors Insider Secrets to Help You Succeed in School

By David C. Wyld

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by David C. Wyld.

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personalenjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away toother people. If you would like to share this book with anotherperson, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Ifyoure reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was notpurchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchaseyour own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of thisauthor.

This book may be the most importantinvestment you make this week, this month, this year - or perhapsin your whole life. Whether you are a student buying this book asyou embark on your college career or you are a parent who found thetitle and thought it would be a good read for your son or daughteras he or she left for their freshman year, this book is a greatinvestment (and certainly, a cheap one!). This investment ofliterally just a few dollars could yield a difference of hundredsof thousands of dollars during the working career of a collegestudents future career as it could help one succeed in college andnot just graduate, but do well, learn more and earn a higher gradepoint average.

The information in this book is literally thebest kind of investment information out there, because it comesfrom an insider. This kind of information would literally beillegal in the world of stock investing, coming from anorganizational insider with the institution you are about to investtens - and over time - literally hundreds of thousands of dollarsin - all in an attempt to secure a better future, either foryourself as a student or as the parent of a student. And collegetoday is literally the second most costly investment, other than ahome, that you will make in your lifetime (and for some of youlucky parents, like myself, that means making similar investmentswith multiple institutions of higher learning for your 2, 3, 4 ormore children). So, from day one on campus, your college career isindeed an investment, and Im one insider who wants to see yousucceed.

Let me introduce myself as your insidesource on what it takes to succeed in college today. My name isDavid Wyld, and I am a Professor of Management at SoutheasternLouisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana (just outside NewOrleans). Ive been teaching management - mostly business strategyand international business courses - at the college level since1987 and at Southeastern since 1992. And so, with 25 years ofexperience, I dare say that I have seen it all. Ive seentechnology change the way we teach - both in the classroom and nowin the online world. Ive seen great changes in the nature andcomposition of the students in college classrooms - and in theprofessors who teach there. Ive seen great changes in the learningresources available to college students. Finally, Ive seen enoughcircumstances involving questionable student andinstructor conduct - both in and outside of the classroom - to havean ability to predict how my colleagues and administrators willreact in a given situation.

So, this book is intended to be a guidebookfor students on how to succeed in their college careers. Think ofit as a short course in College Success 101 - where the only realtest is the ultimate one - will you live up to your personalpotential and be as successful as possible in your college career.In short, will you graduate? Will you graduate on-time? Will youearn the best grades possible each class, each semester, andultimately, over your college career to earn honors atgraduation?

This book is indeed a labor of love. I wantall students who read it to succeed, but I have chosen towrite it at this time and at this moment because my wife and I aresending our oldest son off to college ourselves this fall (so, ifyou see Spencer Wyld at Louisiana Tech or on Facebook or Twitter,do say hey!). This is the information that I would want my ownson to know as he heads-off to study engineering this fall. Thisbook then provides simple, straight-forward advice from anexperienced college insider to answer questions such as: How shouldyou pick your major? How should you choose classes to make yourschedule? How should you approach your classes? How should youstudy for tests? What should your strategy be for doing your beston tests, research projects, and on the dreaded group project? Howshould you interact with other students in your classes and withyour professors? And finally, what should you do when things go badfor you in a class or in an entire semester.

And so, I hope that you will learn a greatdeal from this book that will help you - or your son or daughter -to have the most successful college experience possible (this bookdoes make a great gift for someone going off to college!). If youfind this information helpful, please do contact me directly,either by email at .Id especially like to hear from you with stories of how this bookmight have helped you in your college career and share your storyin a future book and website project that I am currently developing(and in the final chapter, this is your homework assignment).

Theres no substitute for hard work, and youwill no doubt be challenged on many occasions in your collegecareer. However, this book will help give you - or someone you know- an edge in being successful. Now, lets get busy on learning inthis short course to being a success in college!

In this chapter, Professor Wyld talks aboutone of the biggest decisions a student will ever make - choosingtheir college major.

Today at most universities, freshmen do nothave to choose a major. And that may be a very good thing, aschoosing a major is one of the most important decisions you willever make in college - let alone in life. So, it should be madecarefully. Yes, there are countless interest inventories and manyinfluences - some credible, some incredible - that will makestudents choose one major over another (money, relative ease, girlsin the classes, etc.). And while college administrators and parentswould like to think every student goes through a rational decisionprocess in selecting what they want to major in, more often thannot, it is irrational - based on family influences, peers,misperceptions, etc.

So, this chapter speaks to how to choose amajor - and what to do if you find yourself in the wrong major atsome point in your college career. For some, students, therealization comes very early that they have made the rightdecision. If you feel at home in your first class in your major -whether that be business, engineering, education, etc. - then thatcan be a very reassuring feeling. Yet, sometimes, students knowthat theyve made the wrong decision in terms of their major.

If you felt - for whatever reason - that youshould be an accounting major - and yet the whole debits andcredits thing in your first Principles of Accounting course forcesyou into dreamland in each class meeting - then you should likelyreassess your major and your choice of profession (unless it istruly an issue of a boring professor - and yes, as this book hashighlighted, I can readily admit that they do exist!). Likewise, ifyou enter college wanting to be a nurse or a doctor, and yet thefirst dissection in your freshman biology course makes you faint,this may give you pause on your major choice and career aspirations(maybe health care management or a pharmacy career is more yourthing, rather than hands on health care).