The stress-free guide on adapting to university

"For the first time, they are treated like adults and are responsible for their own learning," says Alan Tuffery, a volunteer adviser with Student Learning Development at Trinity College Dublin.

"They get very little feedback, may experience some social difficulty in adapting to college life and have no idea if they are doing well at a subject they may never have undertaken before. Because they have no idea how they are doing, they fret about it. They think the task is more difficult than it is and set about making it such."

"You will be introduced to ideas as much as information, to alternative points of view, to critically interrogating material from a range of different and often opposing angles," says Dr Fionnuala Dillane, Associate Dean, Arts and Humanities, UCD. "Your job is to negotiate this material effectively and to make it your own."

Just remember when you sit down to write your first essay that it's a learning experience. You're not expected to know everything or really anything. It's just an exercise in getting you into the swing of things. So pick up the bat.

■ LECTURES

The most important thing is to turn up for the lecture. "It's not the same trying to learn from notes after the fact," says Dillane. "Active listening is a form of thinking, so by being there and opening up, really listening with what is being said, you are learning to be, and to develop as, a thinker."

"The first five minutes are the most important part of a lecture," says Tuffery. "That's when a good lecturer will let you know what the structure of the lesson is. 'I'll start with this, move on to that and then circle back to whatever.' Jot down key notes and points to keep you on track".

Use handouts to prepare for the lecture, not as a substitute for thinking/engaging during it.

Take notes as you listen, draw diagrams, make connections, rather than trying to write down everything that is said. Tuffery urges students to take handwritten notes and not use laptops. "There is evidence that it impairs your performance. You are so focused on the screen before you that you miss out on key bits of the information being relayed".

Review your notes and follow up with recommended reading so you can tease out the key concepts," says Dillane. "This reviewing step needs to be done within a day of your lecture. It really makes the difference."

■ PEER SUPPORT

"Don't just sit there saying, "I don't know how to do this'. Ask!" says Tuffery. "Your single biggest resource is your classmates and it's the one that people often forget to utilise. There might be 400 people in your lecture, but 12 of you might sit at the same bench in the lab. That's a study group".

Find out if your college has a peer-to-peer programme where students mentor people in the years below them. "There are also teaching assistants with whom arts students might have a tutorial with or demonstrators in labs for science students. There is an informal network there to be used."

■ LEARNING

While Tuffery says that everyone must find their study style, he says the Leaving Cert has resulted in an over-emphasis on rote learning, which simply doesn't translate to college. "No brain can take it all in. If that's the approach you take your brain will be full by Christmas. You need to learn by understanding, which takes longer but is longer-lasting."

If you are a visual person, don't take pages of notes, make diagrams with the information instead. Make audio recordings of the information that you can listen to when you are in transport. Build a bank of flashcards that you can test yourself on.

■ ASSIGNMENTS

"I manage the Academic Writing Centre at NUIG, and we see many students who do not quite know how to approach the first assignment, might over-research it or write a great deal while failing to answer the question," says Dr Ira Ruppo. "The best way to overcome this is to pay particular attention to the phrasing of the question."

"Break down the task and the expectation in your head," says Tuffery. "They want to see if you were present during that first term, to see if you can write 1,000 words - which is only a couple of pages - with your thoughts on what you have learned. They know that you don't know anything, or know very little, on these topics. So just get something down on paper and move on."

But how do you approach an assignment when you have never had to do one before? "Think about what you've heard in tutorial discussions, what you're encountering in lectures, what you read in your notes and textbooks," says Dillane. "Ask yourself questions to make sure you're testing your understandings and interpretations. Are there gaps in your knowledge? Are you able to explain what you're learning about back to yourself or better still, to someone else?"

"Many first-year students expect their first draft to be close to the final version," says Dr Ruppo. "However, as you edit, you re-examine your ideas, the connections between them, and the order in which they are presented and achieve greater clarity of expression."

■ STUDY PLAN

Do a week-by-week analysis, working back from your deadlines. Look at each week, inside and outside the course. Plan your other commitments into this timetable. If you go out drinking with your classmates on Tuesday and Wednesday, well then you know you have to work around those nights… and their after-effects. Plan for hangovers. If you do sports or drama or have a part-time job, you have to put them in.

Tuffery recommends you work in two-hour sessions. "Take a 10-minute break after the first hour. Loo, coffee, a quick walk around the block. Don't check your phone. Studies show a short interruption wrecks your concentration for five minutes or more. You have to actually work backwards just to get to where you were". After two hours, take a break for at least 40 minutes. "Go for a walk. Get something to eat. Coming up to exams, try and fit three to four study sessions like that in a day".

■ STUDY AREA

Most college libraries offer a variety of services. "In NUIG, we have such services as the Academic Skills Desk that provide help with research-related questions, Maker Space, where students can experience cutting-edge technologies, and the Academic Writing Centre, where students can receive one-on-one support with their writing," Says Dr Ruppa."

Get some work done commuting. "If you are going on a bus, on the Dart, you can get a chunk of work done," says Tuffery. "Take notes about your last lecture on your phone. Skeleton an essay. Read the handouts or the chapter you were assigned. Squeezing 20 minutes in here and there frees up an hour at a later date".

■ CRAMMING

"Work on selected parts of the course only and try to cover just enough questions to get you through," says Tuffery. "Do the math on how many marks you need to pass. How many questions are there and what are their weighting on each paper." Taper off study as you get closer to an exam. "The last few days should feature less study, not more. What you don't know going in, doesn't matter. Consolidate what you do know".

■ EXCERCISE

"Many students procrastinate so end up becoming very stressed," says Dr Harry Barry, GP and author of bestselling books Emotional Resilience and Self-Acceptance. "Others are doing part-time work and trying to study, so become quite distressed. Exercise is one of the ways we burn off stress and yet when we are stressed, we believe that there is not enough time to exercise."

Exercise is so important for us from a mental and physical perspective. It boosts our cognition (memory, attention, concentration and decision making); increases levels of feel-good endorphins; boosts our serotonin levels; reduces levels of our chronic stress hormone glucocortisol; and most of all increases levels of a critical neurotrophic factor in the brain called BDNF, which assists us to make new connections.

■ BAD RESULTS

If your results don't meet up to your expectations, use them in your planning ahead. "Analyse the feedback to understand why your grade was lower than what you expected," says Dr Ruppa. "Share your work with others if you can and ask their advice. We love it at the Academic Writing Centre when people bring us their past assignments, and we can usually detect writing issues that might have affected the grade."

"'A worry plus time becomes a problem. A problem plus time becomes a crisis.' In short, ask for support earlier rather than later," says Tuffery. "

"And remember that your first grades are no indication of your final results, your suitability to the programme you chose, or your future success."