No Alarms and No Surprises, Please

I have only a weak, vestigial link to the start-of-school frenzy that marked my autumns almost every year between ages 5 and 30, but I still appreciate this: "Top Ten No Sympathy Lines (Plus a Few Extra)," by UW-Green Bay prof Steven Dutch. The full list if eminently worthwhile, but here's a sample:

This Course Covered Too Much Material...
Great! You got your money's worth! At over $100 a credit, you should complain about not getting a lot of information. If you take a three credit course and get $200 worth of information, you have a right to complain. If you get $500 worth, you got a bargain.

I Know The Material - I Just Don't Do Well on Exams
Leprechauns, unicorns, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, hobbits, orcs - and students who know the material but don't do well on exams. Mythical creatures.

I've met students who claim to know the material but not do well on exams, but when you press them, it turns out they don't know the material after all. If you can't answer questions about the material or apply the knowledge in an unfamiliar context, you don't know it. You might have vague impressions of specific ideas, but if you can't describe them in detail and relate them to other ideas, you don't know the material.

In addition to content, every type of exam used in college requires specific, vital intellectual skills. Essay exams require you to organize material and present it in your own words. Short-answer exams require you to frame precise, concise answers to questions. Multiple choice exams require you to define criteria for weeding out false alternatives and selecting one best answer. All of these are useful skills in themselves. If you can't do well on some specific type of test - learn the appropriate skill.

This Course Wasn't Relevant
If something as vast as mathematics or science or history can pass through your brain without even scraping the sides on the way through, that's a pretty big hole. Are you sure it's the course that doesn't relate to anything?

Our other customers in the community want people who have a good general stock of knowledge they can call on for unexpected needs. Being able to cope with unexpected needs means learning things that may not be immediately needed. You need to stop worrying about whether you need it now and begin worrying about whether your boss might need it later.

(Via Lifehacker.)