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How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. - Education - Nairaland

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What's The Toughest Course You Did/you Are Doing In School? / I Don't Like The Course Am Studying. / Why You May End Up Not Practising The Course You Studied In School (2) (3) (4)

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How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Ihechiopara: 3:34am On Jul 07, 2016
Lots of us have to do subjects we don’t like, and find difficult, to a high level – some as far as university and after. And lots of students deploy the same avoidance tactics as I did, ignoring the problem, and hoping some freak Martian landing on exam day might mean it never comes back to haunt them. However, the best possible thing you can do with a nightmare subject is to tackle it early – not only will the leisure of time improve your chances of being able to catch up, and come out with a grade you can be proud of, but, perhaps more importantly, getting up to scratch will boost your confidence hugely, and make you feel an awful lot better about how school is going.
Highlighted below are some ways or actions that can be taken to get better:

Work out what the problem is
Working out what this problem is, moreover, is the first step to getting on top of things. In general, this is usually one of a few things:
– Not understanding concepts or ideas
– Struggling to learn large swathes of information
– Not being able to apply knowledge in an exam or coursework context
It may be that you struggle with more than one of these problems in your least favorite subjects. It may even be that you struggle with all three, in different topics respectively. But once you figure out what the problem is, or what the problems are, you can stop feeling hopeless and doomed to failure, stop trotting out phrases like ‘I’m just rubbish at Physics’, and start to address it.

Talk to your teacher
Getting your teacher’s opinion on your progress is another good starting-point: they’ll be able to tell you if there’s anything specific you need to improve on. You’ll be surprised each time you ask for the opinion of a university tutor on your work, how clearly they can see things you’d never have thought of, and how helpful their thoughts are. Your teacher might be able to give you extra work, or suggest something you can do, a book you can read, or a website you can visit in your own time. They might even tell you to stop worrying, get out of their office and go and enjoy your youth!

IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT
Understanding concepts
i) Explain it to someone else. Reading and listening are passive, and it’s all-too-easy to get distracted or give up when you come across something tough. Teaching something, on the other hand, is active – it forces you to process information, and regurgitate it in words you think someone else will understand. So pick a difficult concept, and try and explain it to someone who does understand it. Get them to interrupt you if you go wrong – but leave you to figure out why and correct yourself.

ii) Go back to basics. It’s unbelievably boring and time-consuming, but there is a certain satisfaction in sitting down with a text book, beginning with the very simplest information at the beginning of a chapter, and making sure you understand each step, and can do each exercise, until you get the hardest stuff. This could help you improve a lot

iii) Consult the syllabus. Teachers and text books try to make things interesting and relevant – and sometimes clarity is sacrificed in their efforts to explain. Sometimes, especially if you find something difficult, you don’t want or need to know how it can be applied, or another topic that it links to – you just want to know the very basics, the bare minimum, exactly what you need to know to get you through a test. Consult the syllabus for just this information. Often, you’ll find things are a lot simpler than you might initially think.

Learning Information
In subjects like History, Biology, or languages, there is often a huge amount of information to be remembered and reproduced. Success in these subjects requires lots of mundane leg-work learning lists of verbs, the names of niche molecules or types of fungus, or names and dates. Learn to recite huge chunks of Ciceronian speeches. Most people don’t learn well from lists on pages, so try presenting this information in fun and creative ways (I maintain that learning dates can be fun!) to get it into your brain.

i) Diagrams, pictures and posters. Get your felt tips out! If you’re the sort of person that imagines information in colours, or places (or you just like a doodle) you can have fun making posters or diagrams, and perhaps even display them round your room, living room or loo to reinforce the information frequently.

ii) Record yourself and listen. Use your phone to record yourself talking through the information you need to learn, or simply reading out your notes, and listen to it while you do something mindless like go for a walk or lie in bed. There is something about the cringing horror of listening to your own voice (am I really that high-pitched?! Is that my accent?) that makes things stick fast in your brain.

iii) Recite. It’s very Victorian, but I actually like learning to recite long lists of Latin verb endings, or lines of poetry to reproduce in exams. Of course, this will vary from person to person, but I find that once I’ve learned something by reciting it over and over, it’ll stick in my head indefinitely – I can still remember, word-perfect, the poems I learned for IB English exams six years ago! Try it out and see if it works for you.

iv) Link information to actions. Some people remember better if their memorising is accompanied by action – pacing while learning lines for a play, for example. Others learn spatially: doing little actions to remember the definitions of words, or associating different dates with particular places in their heads.

Nailing exams
This is a problem students face just as much in essay subjects like Economics or History: in making sure you cover everything, it’s all-too-easy to lose marks because you can’t translate your knowledge to answering the question on the paper. There’s a simple answer to this, and it is also pretty obvious: practise! Use exam questions the whole way through your high school career, and always think about how you’d organise your knowledge into an essay in subjects where it’s relevant. Using past papers will additionally help you get used to the format of exam papers, the way questions are phrased, and the sorts of questions that come up a lot. What’s more, it will fill you with confidence when entering your exams to know what to expect.

Things take time
Getting better at subjects you hate or find difficult won’t happen overnight because you get the hang of a concept, make a useful poster or do really well on a past paper. These things take time, and lots of it: it’ll be worth it in the end, when it all starts to feel easier, or you come out with a grade you’re happy with, but do be prepared to dedicate a lot of energy to getting better at something. Start as early as possible (N.B. take it from me – 6 weeks before your exams is NOT early enough!), and make it a regular, scheduled extra thing: you might dedicate two hours, each week, on a Saturday morning; or 45 minutes three evenings a week after school. Don’t plan to do so much that you can’t stick to it: it’s far more important to do a little bit, and often, than to have one whole enthusiastic, productive day that never happens again.
http://www.ihechiopara.com/2015/11/enjoy-course-yoy-hate.html?m=1

11 Likes 1 Share

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by MidasTouche01(m): 5:06am On Jul 07, 2016
The simplest way is to stop hating the course/subject.... cool

8 Likes

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by brunofarad(m): 6:31am On Jul 07, 2016
Ok
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Nobody: 6:32am On Jul 07, 2016
Op and FTC have said it all smiley

1 Like 1 Share

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by JoelXclusive: 6:33am On Jul 07, 2016
okay.. noted.
but this thing use style long oo

3 Likes

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by DebbyChris(f): 6:34am On Jul 07, 2016
simply love the course the way u love your parents, bf or gf and watch the magic.
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by dauntless15(m): 6:34am On Jul 07, 2016
I only hate research methodology theres no way i can love it, perfect waste of time as if the countless assignments ive done are not research i wan come learn am again, what I've been doing since forever

3 Likes 1 Share

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by marY70(f): 6:38am On Jul 07, 2016
easier said than done
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Cutesthunk(m): 6:42am On Jul 07, 2016
Helpful words there......
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Flexherbal(m): 6:43am On Jul 07, 2016
Thanks Op: this is a source of hope to someone out there.
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by FakeNEWSevryday: 6:46am On Jul 07, 2016
na by force?
...but seriously we need topic like this: " how the South east and South-south will commend Buhari" grin
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Histrings08(m): 6:51am On Jul 07, 2016
Pfft... The truth is no matter how much you hate the course, u must find a way to make peace with it... Cod in higher institution, every course count
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by FakeNEWSevryday: 6:54am On Jul 07, 2016
JoelXclusive:
okay.. noted.

but this thing use style long oo
teacher also contribute like op just did right now,u want to encourage students to love the hated subject and u wrote long list of epistle and u believe they will read it?

1 Like

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by vizkiz: 7:01am On Jul 07, 2016
This can work for mathematics. No! I still hate maths till date angry

1 Like

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by emyryx(m): 7:03am On Jul 07, 2016
this is freaking long.
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by emyryx(m): 7:03am On Jul 07, 2016
this is freaking long. Chisos
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Emeka71(m): 7:12am On Jul 07, 2016
dauntless15:
I only hate research methodology theres no way i can love it, perfect waste of time as if the countless assignments ive done are not research i wan come learn am again, what I've been doing since forever
But; you must still find a way to pass research; unless-
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by dauntless15(m): 7:13am On Jul 07, 2016
Emeka71:
But; you must still find a way to pass research; unless-
unless?
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by SweetieConstie(f): 7:13am On Jul 07, 2016
Nice one OP! grin
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Emeka71(m): 7:14am On Jul 07, 2016
DebbyChris:
simply love the course the way u love your parents, bf or gf and watch the magic.
How deep is your love?
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Emeka71(m): 7:15am On Jul 07, 2016
dauntless15:
unless?
Carry-over.
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Lush100(m): 7:16am On Jul 07, 2016
Most people who don't like a course has not met someone who would show them the gold mine in it,( If u can get someone out there who can show u the potential of the course u are doing ur mindset changes &_ur energy to accomplish comes back.
thus no course is bad,....to me that starts first
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Emeka71(m): 7:17am On Jul 07, 2016
SweetieConstie:
For sale?
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by dauntless15(m): 7:18am On Jul 07, 2016
Emeka71:
Carry-over.
am i brain dead?
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by SweetieConstie(f): 7:19am On Jul 07, 2016
Emeka71:
For sale?
Hahaha... Fixed!wink
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Francis95(m): 7:20am On Jul 07, 2016
Hmm
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by McBrooklyn(m): 7:28am On Jul 07, 2016
OP, some courses in the Nigeria university or polytechnics can be life threatening just in case you don't know!!! angry


And How would you expect people to like that particular course that at the end of the you would just waste your precious time and still end up with a 2nd class lower or even a 3rd class sef. So How??
undecided

Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Ezedon(m): 7:29am On Jul 07, 2016
Not course with CALCULUS
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Emeka71(m): 7:35am On Jul 07, 2016
dauntless15:
am i brain dead?
You're brain alive.
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by horpiano(m): 7:35am On Jul 07, 2016
to me there is a say make ur passion ur profession .....so why study course u don't like well our universities dis days change courses one intend to study once ur are not qualified 2 study d course u applied 4......buh alubarika ni Koko...
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by dauntless15(m): 7:38am On Jul 07, 2016
Emeka71:
You're brain alive.
so thats why i cant carryover research methodology even if i slept during the exam
Re: How To Enjoy The Course You Hate. by Edroom: 7:49am On Jul 07, 2016
Good

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