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In order to improve your grades, you will need to put in a good deal of effort. College is not meant to be easy, which is why low grades are the main cause of the high college dropout rate. If, however, you are willing to attend class, study at home, stay focused, and communicate with your peers and professors, you will be able to get good grades.

Go to Class:

The main reason for poor grades is simple laziness. Many universities have discussed not holding class on Fridays anymore because of dismal attendance rates going into the weekend. When you go to class, you get notes straight from your professor, you get an idea of what your professor finds important (what will be covered on an exam), and you keep pace with the curriculum. Simply put, if you don't go to class, you are putting yourself at a massive disadvantage.

Study in Multiple Ways:
Some people are better at absorbing information visually; others are better at processing auditory information. Overall, however, the more ways you get a piece of information, the more likely are to remember it come exam time. When you go to class, you will typically always hear your class curriculum. As you read your course books, you visually absorb that information. You can take these two means of processing information further by talking out loud or by rewriting information. For example, when you go to your history class, you hear that Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth American president. You process this information once and in an auditory manner. By reading in your book that Lincoln was the sixteenth president, restating it out loud, and writing it down in your notebook, you will have absorbed that knowledge in four ways. The more ways you process it, the more likely you are to remember it.

Stop Procrastinating:
A paper written in one night will almost always be worse than a paper written over the span of a week. Spread out your work. When your professor assigns you a five page paper due in two weeks, start it right away rather than wasting those two weeks. If you do your research early and write only half a page per day, you will not only make your life easier, but you will also see an increase in the quality of your work.

Join a Study Group:
Collaborate with peers who are taking the same class and take advantage of multiple minds thinking about the same information. Study groups are able to cover more material in less time than individual studying and they are able to go over that information in more ways. Study groups can have a stronger comprehensive review, student-to-student quizzing, and help from peers in areas where you have difficulty.

Take Advantage of Your Professors' Office Hours:
If you are going to get high grades, you have to know what your professors are looking for. When you are struggling, visit your professors during their office hours - most of them are thrilled to have students use this time to their advantage. Get an idea of what you need to do to improve your grades from the people calculating them. Plus, you can get a personal review of any material that you don't understand.

Learn more about this author, Art Vandelay.
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