Author: Sheri Dean Parmelee

Preparing for Comprehensive or Qualifying Exams Part Three

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

So, here you are, just days away from the big exams. What do you do now? I recommend going over all of your summaries a few last times and then taking the night before the exams lightly. That is, don’t try to cram a bunch more stuff into your brain, just review the basics, and then go to bed in a timely manner. Not early, not late, just try for the normal bedtime with as much normality as possible. Keep to your normal routine at bedtime.

When you arrive at the testing center, get your geese in a row. If you have been allowed to bring in food, do so. Organize your things as much as possible. We were allowed to bring in food, drinks, and notepads and pens. As soon as the exam begins, do a brain dump before you even look at the questions.

Is there something that you want to make sure you remember? Don’t be distracted by looking at the questions before you jot it down. Maybe you are required to list authors and their works in all of your answers. Write down names and books/articles as quickly as you can. Dump everything on the notepad that you think will be helpful to mention in your replies. This will take several minutes. Take this time because it will pay off later.

After you have done your brain dump, now look at the questions. As you go through them, go ahead and type the basic questions into your answer pages. Then, go back through the questions and start actually answering them, one at a time. If something suddenly “comes to you” about part of the answer, go ahead and jot it down. When you have written all of the sources that you want to use in a specific answer, go back and begin writing your own thoughts on the topic, making sure that you support everything that you are saying with quotes or paraphrases from your sources.

If something does not seem immediately obvious, go ahead and work on other parts of the answer, but be sure to return to the area that you drew a blank on earlier. The thing is to make sure you go back and answer the question. If you are still uncertain and time is running out, try to answer around the question as best you can. Happily, we had oral defenses of our written exams and I was able to answer the question at that point in time.

If you still have time, go back and polish the writing. If you run out of time, just make sure that you are at least basically understandable. We had four hours of testing, one hour for lunch, and four hours of testing for two days. Do not waste energy by kicking yourself for something you forgot.

BTW, my professors really liked it when we could take information from one class and apply it to something in another class. Since my knowledge of philosophy was particularly strong, I took a philosophical approach to all of the questions I was asked. That worked very well.

I wish you well with your upcoming exams. If you have any questions or comments, please use my name or this specific topic in your comments so that I know you are not spam.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Preparing for Qualifying or Comprehensive Exams Part Two

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Here is the information I promised you on studying for individual topics within your qualifying or comprehensive exams.

Take all of the books and articles you had for this class and make a summary of them. If you have a study group, assign each team member a specific book or group of articles to summarize. Begin with a 20-page summary of a given book, focusing on the main points that book has. Is there a particular point of view expressed by the author? What is the bottom line that the book offers?

Work through your summary slowly, encapsulating the theme of the book until you can get the summary down to one or two pages. You don’t have time to write a 20-page summary on exam day, so what is the author saying, in a nut shell? Are there any specific quotations that you can pull out of the text that explains it completely? That is what you are trying to distill from the book.

Move on to all of the other books from that class, doing the same 20-page summary, and then work at condensing it to one or two pages. Don’t do a copy and paste job here, but type the summaries up by hand. This makes the information go into your brain and through your hands in a way that a copy and paste job won’t.

Do the same thing with any articles that were required. Obviously, an article will be shorter than a book and the summary will be shorter as well. Give the articles the same treatment and condense them into one page summaries.

Next, place the information on 3×5 or 4×6 cards and keep them with you at all times. During any down time, such as waiting for a class to start, waiting at the doctor’s office, or waiting for anything at all, pull out your note cards and study them.

I am a treadmill runner, so I blew my Word document summaries up to about 16 point font, taped them to the wall in front of my treadmill, and had 1 1/2 hours to stud each day as I ran. That means that, before I even had my shower for the day, I had already studied for 1 1/2 hours.  The exams where I went to school cost $1,000 and could only be taken twice. I didn’t want to waste both time and money, so I studied and passed the 16- hour exams (and the 2-hour oral defense) the first time.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns that I haven’t addressed herein and I would be happy to write about them next time. Please use my name in the body of your comment, so that I won’t think you are spam. Thanks!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Preparing for Qualifying or Comprehensive Exams Part One

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

A couple of my online graduate students were sharing their mutual concern about their upcoming comprehensive exams. Since I went through my qualifying exams a couple of years ago, it seemed like a good idea to share some tips with you, my readers, on how to successfully go through these difficult tests.

First, check any recent written material you have from your university that states what the exams will cover. For example, we had a handbook that indicated that every assigned article and every book for every class was fair game for the examinations. This also included every discussion board topic.

Next, go back through all of your classes and print out or save as a Word document everything that has the possibility of being on the exam (ideally, you would have done this as you took the courses, but this is not a perfect world, so get together everything you or your classmates have on a given course).  Save this to a thumb drive or other storage device, in case your computer crashes. (I lost two computers to the black screen of death during my graduate programs).

If you have other people in your classes that have the same work ethic that you do, offer to join a study group with them. Do not latch on to non-productive classmates. Stick to the serious students who want to pass these exams the first time. Agree to meet on a regular basis, giving one another homework assignments to summarize various books and articles so that you don’t have to do all the work yourself. (One of my classes had 11 books, so sharing the summarizing load was absolutely a must!) Share notes generously with others in your group. Be prepared to explain your summary during group time. If you can teach it, you really know it.

Set up a timetable for getting the studying done. Work backwards, starting with the date of the tests and then figuring out how much time that gives you to study each class. For example, my study group decided to spend two weeks on philosophy but a week and a half on some of the other classes because we felt like we had a good handle on those classes. You will be doing a personal every-other-day review of the classes that you aren’t focusing on while studying as a group, so that you won’t forget the information.

Keep in mind that you will be studying on your own for many hours when you aren’t with the group, especially if you have some classes that you alone took. Other teammates may have courses in common that they want to study for outside the larger group.

Finally, practice writing the answers. For example, my program had two-hour questions for each of the 7 topics in the qualifying exams, so I prepared sample questions based on the discussion board topics and practiced sitting at my computer, writing answers for two-hour blocks of time. It was very difficult at first, but got easier as I practiced writing for extended periods of time. I used my notes at first, just to get the swing of things, and then gradually made myself answer questions without my notes.

This blog is getting rather long, so my next part in this series will discuss how to study for an individual subject. If you would like to comment or ask a question, please use my name in the body of your comment, so that I know you are not spam. Thanks!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Preparation Part Six: Grad School versus Undergraduate Programs

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hi Everyone:

I have been asked to discuss the differences between undergraduate programs and graduate ones and how to make the transition.  Here goes.

Simply put, graduate programs are undergraduate programs on steroids. Where you might have been pretty coddled in your four-year program, you absolutely need to take responsibility for your own education in graduate school. Do not even think about coming to class without having read the assignment. My Ph.D. program’s summer residency asked that we read all of the required books (there were 11 textbooks in one of my classes) before coming to campus for the one week of face-to-face classes – they met from 9 to 5 so you didn’t have time after you got there. That was good advice.

Make sure that you print out the syllabus and all course requirements well before the first day of class. Whereas some undergraduate programs were geared to folks skipping the first day or two of class, don’t even dream about it here! Order in the books and begin reading them immediately. This is not a “wait and see” approach to education. You are expected to be, as Elle Woods’ professor said at her first class on the first day of law school at Harvard, “well versed in…..” whatever the topic of the day is.

Take copious notes; find equally-serious fellow students to form a study group with and meet with them on a regular basis. Keep in mind that most graduate programs begin fast and continue at break-neck speed. This is not for the faint of heart, but you can do this, if you never get behind.

Take the calendar and all the other equipment I talked about in earlier blogs and use them here, as well. You were practicing how to use them in earlier years, now you will be lost without them. If possible, take a speed reading course. (My Ph.D. program brought in a speed reading teacher the very first day of class and told us, “If you can’t read at least 500 words a minute, you will never make it.” There is simply too much reading.)

I hope this hasn’t scared you, but I figure you want the unvarnished truth. (BTW, the study group that we formed back in 2012 still meets, even though we have all graduated. We have become very close, and we all made it through!).

If you have any questions, feel free to post them as a comment and I would be happy to answer your concerns.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Organization Part Five: Preparing for Graduate School

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Maybe you have set your goals for the future and that future includes graduate school. When do you begin preparing? Right now.

The first four parts of this college prep series have gotten you well-organized and ready to hit the deck running. You are taking your assignments seriously and you are not making excuses for not doing the work. You enter each class prepared and ready to learn. So how do you prepare for graduate school?

The first thing you do, after making sure you have stellar grades (some programs won’t accept you unless your undergraduate work had a certain high GPA), is to study for any qualifying exams you have to take in order to get in. These vary, based on the program you want to enter. I took the GRE. Keep in mind that you can take it more than once. I took it three times, studying like crazy in between testings (at about $150 each), so that my grades could give me a better chance at acceptance. I hired a tutor for the math section, after feeling that my grades in that section were less than outstanding.

The next thing you need to do is to ask your current professors for letters of recommendation. (I have covered this topic in another blog, so you should check that blog out). We have many students each term (I usually have between 125 and 150 students per semester, since I teach at 3 colleges) and you want me to remember you, even if you won’t need the letter right away.

How can you remind me that I know you? First, make sure that you received an A in my class- I do not give letters of recommendation to B or lower students, because I don’t want to write “Joe is a average student who never distinguished himself in my class in any way, shape, or form.” That will not get you into their program. Go to a professor whose class you aced and ask him or her for a letter.

Next, keep in touch. When you see me on campus, stop by and say “hello.” Tell me what you have been up to (I want to hear, even if I am rushing some place). Give me the Readers’ Digest condensed version of your life since we last met and remind me that you will be needing a letter in a few months.

Finally, do not wait until the day before the letter is due at the college to ask me for the recommendation. I will not be amused. Try to give me a few weeks notice, if possible. In your request, include the name of the class you took with me, when you took it, and what your final grade was. Don’t make me look it up; that takes time. If you did anything unusual that will help me remember you, tell me. One gal told me “I am the girl who always carried a huge purse” or “I always wore yellow.” Believe it or not, that was what I remembered first about the person and I was able to write a very strong letter on her behalf.

I hope this blog helps you begin your work towards getting into graduate school. I would love to hear any ideas you have on the topic. Was there something special that you did? Next time, I will discuss the transition between undergraduate programs and graduate school.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Organization Part Five: Preparing for Exams

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

So, you have committed to study for good grades, but how do you prepare for an exam? It starts back with pre-reading the assignments before the lecture.

You have organized your academic calendar at the beginning of the semester. You have faithfully read your assignments ahead of time, but there are some steps you need to take as soon as you get home.

First, organize your lecture notes. Is there anything unclear or muddy? Plan on asking the professor about it at the next lecture, AFTER you have re-read the reading for that day. You may be able to clear things up by looking at the material again. Does this mean that you are reading the material twice? Yes, but that is just the start.

Next, make up study notes for anything the professor seemed particularly focused on. Sometimes professors will spend a lot of time on one area. It is good to ask him or her if there is a reason for this extended time. It may be because the concepts being described are building blocks that you need for future information or it may be that this information will be on your next exam. There is usually a good reason for us to take extra time with something. Don’t just blow it off or disregard our comments.

On a weekly basis, go back over your notes and remind yourself about what you have learned. Take this information and use it to shore up your knowledge about the topic at hand. Do not wait until the night before an exam to start studying. That is a good way to flunk even the simplest of tests. The idea here is to put yourself in a perpetual mode of preparing for the exam. Guess what will happen? You will actually be ready for the exam and will not be cramming information into your brain at the last minute.

I see this blog is getting a bit long-winded, so I will put your next steps on the next blog, which I write later this week. If you have any questions or comments, please use my name in your reply, so that I will know that you are not a robot.  I would be happy to address topics that concern you.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Organization Part Four: Walking around while studying

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

What do you do if you are tired of sitting and you still have hours to study? Walk around a bit. Believe it or not, you can study while walking. Let me tell you how.

When studying for my qualifying exams, I devoted six hours a day to putting information into my brain. That is a long time to sit, so I made up note cards with the information I needed and learned to hold them at just the right angle in front of myself so that I could walk on my front porch (which does not have a railing) and continue to study while putting in some mileage and not falling off the edge of the porch.

I also run on a treadmill each day, so I wrote out pages of study notes, blew them up into 24 point font, and put them on the wall in front of my treadmill. Since I run for an hour and a half each day (Monday through Friday), I was able to get in an hour and a half of study time before I had even had my shower!

Another good place to get in study time is in the bathroom. After washing my hair each morning, I would look at some note cards  while blow drying my hair. That was a good eight minutes of work; I have been drying my hair long enough to not need to watch myself do it.

Note cards became my constant companion. Was there a line at the bank? Time for note cards. Did I have to wait at the grocery store? Time for more note cards. Minutes that would have otherwise been wasted were turned into profitable study time. Was I at the doctor’s office or dentist? Well, you get the picture. Guess what? My Ph.D. GPA was higher than my undergraduate or master’s program GPA because I figured out how to turn nonproductive time into study time. The result? My GPA for the Ph.D. program was 3.86 (out of 4.0). If I did it, you can too!

I see this blog is getting a bit long-winded, so I will put your next steps on the next blog, which I will go ahead and write today. If you have any questions or comments, please use my name in your reply, so that I will know that you are not a robot.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Organization Part Three: What is the oven timer for?

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Here we are at part three, where I will explain why you need the oven timer!

We all claim to spend xyz hours studying, right? Now you are going to prove it to yourself. The rule of thumb is two hours of studying for every hour of class time. I don’t know many people who actually do that (I wrote about the two ladies I found this semester that do spend hours studying in an earlier blog), but that is the gold standard for good grades.

So, pull out your oven timer and get to work. When you sit down to read your homework or write a paper, set the timer for 45 minutes or an hour, depending on how long you can sit down without needing to “fluff your pillow.” Focus totally on your school work. If the phone rings, or the mail carrier knocks on the door, or a family member sits down to chat with you, turn off the timer. You are not studying.

When the distraction is gone and you are ready to get back to work, turn the timer back on. Log your actual study time on your academic calendar or a notebook. Keep track of how long you devote to your studies. Make a commitment to spend so many hours per day and so many hours per week studying and move heaven and earth to make that happen.

Every 45 minutes or hour, get up and walk around a bit. It will help get the blood flowing again and prevent you from falling asleep. If you can talk to your significant other or family about not interrupting your study time, that is a great idea. When I am writing, every interruption takes me about 20 minutes of concentrated effort to refocus my full attention on what I was doing. If you are the same way, even the slightest distraction can really drain your study time.

When I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation, I made a commitment to write two hours a day, five days a week. I also tried to write at least an hour on the two days that I took “off”- these were days that I was teaching face-to-face classes all day and then coming home to make dinner, do laundry, and go to choir practice. I had discipline and, as a result, finished writing a 400-page dissertation with 20 pages of references in 12 months. Some people take years to do the same thing. Dedication pays off. If I did it, you can do this homework thing as well!

I see this blog is getting a bit long-winded, so I will put your next steps on the next blog, which I will go ahead and write today. If you have any questions or comments, please use my name in your reply, so that I will know that you are not a robot.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Organization Part two

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Here is part two of what I am writing about college organization. Okay, it is the first day of class and your professor just handed you the syllabus for the class. DO NOT LOSE THIS! I suggest that you slip it into a clear protective sleeve and carry it in your class notebook. [Some professors also post their syllabus on the class webpage, so you can find a replacement copy there, if you do the unthinkable and lose it.]

The professors at my colleges are required to go over the syllabus at the beginning of class. Though it may seem very boring (we are bored by this, as well), pay attention. Take notes on what is said about assignments. Do not automatically think we will follow up our instructions in writing. I stopped posting additional instructions on my class page years ago, to save time and to acknowledge that you are no longer in grade school. You are an adult and I expect you to write things down. It is not my responsibility to remind you!

When you get home, take the syllabi that you received today and immediately write the assignments onto your calendar, marking the assignments in different colors of ink for each different class. (I also note what class it is for, such as ENGL101, so that I won’t need to remember which color ink is for which class.) You need to do this every day when you get home from your first-time classes.

[Extra Note: do not show up late for class. Many professors make announcements at the beginning of class and if you are late you will miss them BUT you will still be responsible for what was said!]

After you have entered the due dates (including all reading assignments) for each class, go back and use the highlighter to mark big projects. As you complete each assignment throughout the semester, check it off on your calendar. Do not obliterate the information by marking through it; you may need to revisit the assignments and must be able to see them.

By having an entire month available at one time, you should be able to stay ahead of things and not miss assignments. My next blog will explain what you are to do with the oven timer. I see this blog is getting a bit long-winded, so I will put your next steps on the next blog, which I will go ahead and write today. If you have any questions or comments, please use my name in your reply, so that I will know that you are not a robot.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

College Organization 101: Getting ready to succeed

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

My face-to-face college students have asked me to blog about getting and being organized in college. They asked me about balancing work and college and getting assignments done. For the next few blogs, I will break things down, step-by-step and show you how to be more organized. I used these same principles while working on two undergraduate degrees at the same time, home schooling, running a decorating business, and caring for my family. These are tested and true ideas. Let’s get to work!

You will need to purchase the following items: an academic calendar that is a month-at-a-glance, pens that contain different colors for each of the classes you are taking in a given semester (five classes=five different colors of ink), a highlighter, and an oven timer. [With the calendar, you can use a business month-at-a-glance calendar if you want, as long as the squares are at least two inches square. You are going to be writing your assignments in the squares, so a traditional calendar won’t be big enough.]

As soon as you know what books will be used for a given class, buy or order them. You must have the books by the time the class starts because you are going to get ahead of the class (and, hopefully, stay ahead)!

As soon as you have a copy of the syllabus, do the first week’s reading for each class. Do not try to get way ahead or your understanding of the material might fade (or it might simply be wrong). The idea here is that you are going to do the reading for the lecture before you come to class. That way, you will not be overwhelmed by not knowing anything that the professor is talking about. By reading ahead just a little, you will be vaguely familiar with the information before it is presented.

If you do not have access to the syllabus before the class begins,  read the Table of Contents, to see what the book covers and then read the introduction to the text. As you read, highlight information that seems important but do not highlight everything. If you are someone who is distracted by highlighting (I am one of those people), you might find it more helpful to underline in the book. Margins are usually pretty large, so you can actually make notes there, if you would also be distracted by underlining.

I see this blog is getting a bit long-winded, so I will put your next steps on the next blog, which I will go ahead and write today. If you have any questions or comments, please use my name in your reply, so that I will know that you are not a robot.

Best,

Dr. Sheri