London series: Laboratory Practicals

Personally, I hate laboratory practicals. They are by far the most troublesome and stressful types of classes that I have ever come across. However, for those of you who have these classes they are absolutely essential for your grades. This is apparent in the lab report you’ll have to submit on your activities within the class.

The main tip when participating in laboratory practicals is handling the equipment. As university labs are usually supplied with professional grade equipment, special attention must be taken when handling them for several reasons. First, you should make sure to be using them correctly. Knowing the right procedures in handling equipment will allow you to actually finish your lab report so your tutor will have something good to grade. Second, replacing them could decimate your wallet. As they are professional grade equipment, you would probably be unable to afford a replacement if you end up breaking one of them.

London series: Presentations

Those of you reading this are probably familiar with presentations and the presentations in university are not much different from what you have probably done. However, there are some tips worth mentioning when doing or listening to presentations in university.

First, when doing presentations remember to keep what you deliver concise. This goes for both the writing on your presentation slides and what you verbally communicate. This way your classmates will be able to understand you better without boring them. More importantly, your tutor will be able to follow your line of thinking more clearly. This is especially important as analysis is a huge part of studying overall in uni. If your analysis is delivered inaccurately your grades might suffer as a result.

Second, when listening to presentations you probably don’t need to do anything. You probably won’t need to even listen. As most presentations are beneficial to the presenter, members of the audience don’t need to concern themselves with how other presentations go. All you need to do is to make sure is that you’re respectful of the presenter to let them do what they must.

London series: Discussions

Discussions are usually centred around a task or presentation but sometimes tutors moderate a discussion for students to have within class. This might come in forms such as an open forum or debates. Either way, these discussions might not have a significant impact on your grades but will allow you to understand the material better. This is done through the active exchange of perspectives and ideas you will experience when engaging in discussions.

However, speaking during discussions might not be necessary. As valuable as speaking is, listening might be the more important skill needed during discussions. For those of you who can’t be bothered to state their opinion or even think, paying close attention to what other students say will be a valuable yet comfortable experience for you. This can be done by casually sitting around without taking notes but seriously listening to what other students are saying. By doing this, you might not be able to establish a reliable bank of information but feel out the lines of thinking your classmates display. This will allow you to understand different ways of thinking and implement them on your own to view things through different perspectives.

London series: Assignments

Assignments in class are usually assignments that were given to students in advance so the entire class can discuss the answer. As a result, the first step of properly immersing yourself in completing these assignments is actually doing them beforehand. Then you should prepare them for the class and have your answers written in detail to contribute to the discussion. This is a particularly useful teaching mechanism tutors often use and you should expect to see them in uni.

As these assignments are meant for discussions, listening to other answers is a great way to make the best of them. You can write down notes of what other people think on blank spaces on your worksheet. In particular, a common occurrence is revision where apparently your answer is incorrect. A great way to revise an incorrect answer is to keep your original answer untouched while noting down the correct answer next to it. This is helpful as you can see the faults in your thinking and why you didn’t reach the correct answer.

London Series: Practicals

Practicals will be an important part of your uni experience. They will require you to be take a more hands-on approach compared to normal classes and it will definitely be a bother to most students. Luckily, there are ways to cheat the system and have a relatively more comfortable ride than oblivious students. This week we’ll discuss how you should take on practicals to properly make the most of these sessions.

  • Assignments
  • Discussions
  • Presentations
  • Lab Work

London series: Deadlines

Deadlines might not seem like a part of classes but in some cases they could be. This mainly refers to chasing deadlines within a class by completing the assignment. Although this is obviously not ideal, but tough times call for desperate measures. The only trick thats worth mentioning is to pretend you are taking notes of the lecture. Create a habit of using your laptop for taking notes to dispel any suspicion your tutor might have about you not paying attention to the lecture. This way, you can finish your assignment during class but will have to spend extra effort in getting notes from other people. Additionally, a lecture is probably the best type of class for you to do this in. This is because these classes aren’t very interactive and are usually accommodating a large number of students.