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28 Tips for Studying for Final Exams

Image Credit: “Despair” by Juliana Coutinho

Final exams are approaching on college campuses around the world. Finals can be stressful, even for the most prepared students. Here are some tips to help you succeed:

Preparing for the Final

  1. Find out what your entire final exam schedule is so that you’ll know how many finals you will have on each day.
  2. Prepare a written schedule for yourself indicating when you will study for each test. Leave some time in your schedule for exercise and relaxation, too.
  3. If the professor offers a study guide, use it.
  4. If the professor offers a review session for the exam, go to it.
  5. If you study well in groups, form a study group.
  6. Know if the final is comprehensive (covering everything since the beginning of the semester or quarter).
  7. Find out what kind of exam it will be. You’d study differently for a multiple-choice (Scantron) final than an essay (blue book) one.
  8. If the final will be taken online, find out if you have to go to a specific computer lab on campus at a specific time, or if you’ll be allowed to take the final on your own computer. Also find out how many chances you will have to take the final. Assume it’s just one chance unless you hear differently from the professor.
  9. If you have your previous exams available, scour the exams for things that you think will be on the final.
  10. Flag your notes by highlighting or using Post-It notes.
  11. Don’t pull an all-nighter. (Though some people are successful with studying all night and then taking a test with no sleep, I wouldn’t recommend you try it for the first time on a final exam.)
  12. Calculate your grades in the class. Determine what score you will need to get the grade you’re hoping for in the class. You may discover that you can’t possibly get an A, no matter how well you do on the final, but to get a B, you only need to get a few questions right.
  13. If you’re an auditory learner, record yourself reading your notes aloud, then play the recording back several times.
  14. If the exam is an open-book exam, this does not mean that you don’t have to study at all. In fact, one of the most challenging exams I ever took as an undergrad was an open-book essay exam. Flag your textbook based on where you believe the questions will come from.
  15. Consider using one of the available smartphone apps to help you prepare for your final.
  16. Create a detailed Final Exam Battle Plan.

On the Day of the Final

  1. Feed your brain. Eat a meal and drink at least two bottles of water.
  2. Don’t overdo it with the caffeine. You want to be alert but not jittery. If you’ve never tried an energy drink before, the day of an important final is not a good first time.
  3. Are food and drinks allowed in the classroom where your final will be? Sometimes, the rules are different for exam days than other days. If you can have food with you, choose things that will not disrupt other students.
  4. Know what to bring with you to the final. Do you need a blue book? A Scantron? (And if you need a Scantron, which specific type do you need?) A pencil? A pen? When in doubt, overpack.
  5. Even if you don’t usually wear a watch, take one with you to the final. It’s unlikely you will be able to look at your cell phone to check the time during the final.

During the Final

  1. For a paper-based exam, read through the entire final exam before you start answering any questions at all. This way, you will know what you’re facing. Seriously. Do this. It’s probably the most important thing you’ll do during your final.
  2. If the final is an online exam, find out if you can revisit questions, or if after you click past a question you cannot go back to it again.
  3. If you’re using a Scantron and you skip a question to finish later, make sure you’re answering your questions next to the correct answers. (When I took my GRE to get into grad school, I skipped a question on the first page of the booklet, but never skipped a number on the Scantron. When I realized it, I only had 10 minutes to go back and put the answers with the correct questions. Talk about stress!)
  4. Keep a close eye on the time you have allotted. (If you know there’s no clock in the room where your final is held, wear an old-fashioned analog watch. Most professors do not allow smartwatches to be worn during exams.)
  5. Some students benefit from answering the most difficult questions first, while others do better completing all the easier ones. Do what works for you.

After the Final

  1. Do not share with other students what was on the final exam. In virtually all universities, this is a violation of the honor code.
  2. Take a breath and relax. Then forge ahead to the next final.

Now it’s your turn: What final exam tips do you have to share? Please let us know through your comments below.

barbara_is_listening

 

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Informational Interview with a Corporate PR Pro :: COMM 4363

For this assignment in COMM 4363, you will choose and interview a corporate public relations professional — as opposed to someone who works for an agency, and then write about this interview.

In the Week 4 section in MyFire, submit a Word file with your 500-word (minimum) recap of the interview. In addition to the recap, you’ll need to provide me with the PR professional’s contact information (name, title & company, phone number and e-mail address).

Due Date: See our course in MyFire

Though a face-to-face interview is preferred, a phone or webcam interview is acceptable. An interview that is e-mail or text-based only is not acceptable.

Schedule your interview at least a week before this assignment is due, preferably two. PR professionals sometimes have unpredictable schedules, and it’s possible that you may need to reschedule.

Include an introductory paragraph that introduces the PR professional, including title and company, educational background, etc. Mention your connection to the professional (how you found him/her) and how you conducted the interview (face-to-face, phone or webcam).

Questions/Topics you need to include:

  • What’s a typical week like? (If no week is typical, then what was last week like?)
  • Tell me about a project you worked on that you are especially proud of.
  • What do you do to keep current in the PR industry?
  • What do you wish you would have known before starting your career in PR?
  • How important is writing in your career?
  • If you’ve ever worked for an agency, how is agency life different from corporate PR life?
  • What three tips would you offer someone just starting out in PR?
  • After interviewing this person, are you (the student, not the practitioner) more or less likely to want to have a career in PR? Why?

Some questions you may wish to ask:

  • Did your education prepare you for working in PR? How?
  • What has surprised you the most about working in PR?
  • How has PR changed since you entered the field?
  • How does technology affect your daily work?
  • When your company is hiring for an entry-level PR position, what makes a candidate stand out?
  • What professional organizations are you involved in? (For example, PRSA, IABC, etc.)
  • Ask for feedback on your resume
  • More informational interview questions

Some things you may wish to do:

  • Include a photo of your interviewee. (This can be a photo he or she provides or one that you take yourself.)
  • Link to your interviewee’s LinkedIn profile and/or blog.
  • Conduct the interview using Skype and two webcams. Record the interview with Vodburner, and post the interview at your blog.

Questions?

barbara_is_listening

[NOTE: This must be an informational interview that you conduct this semester. Do not “recycle” an interview that you conducted during a previous semester.]

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Top Ten Takeaways from #COMM4363 Corporate PR


Photo Credit: 10 by Leo Reynolds

Students in my Corporate Public Relations class at Southeastern University shared the top ten things they learned during the semester. I’ve summarized the highlights of their lists here, in alphabetical order by author. Some discussed the class in general, while others took a more focused approach on presentation skills.

Jen Cicotta

  • “Learn from the world around you – One of the greatest classes often is not in a classroom. Everyday in class we talked about different things that were happening in the world and how it relates to our field of interest. I think by scanning the days news headlines you can really learn from what people are doing in real life situations.”

Whitney Gonzalez

  • “Opportunities Are Everywhere: Connections can be made everywhere you go so it is always important that you be prepared to be professional. Tweets may even connect with a PR practitioners in Sprint who can let you conduct a project with a Sprint phone.”

Gracey Hulbert

  • “Actions that could effectively prevent any harm to a company‘s reputation on Day 1 may be completely ineffective on Days 2, 5, or 10.”

Juliet Jones

  • “Crisis Management – The Ford Fiesta [project] really pushed us to use our “Crisis management” skills. I learned it is always important to have a back up plan and to be prepared for ANYTHING.”

Mikelle Liette

  • “It is great to use PowerPoint to create a visual that your audience can relate to, or take notes from, but be careful! Make sure the PowerPoint doesn’t do your presentation for you. For the presentation simply put key words up that you can expound upon. If you put everything that you are going to say up on the PowerPoint, then you might as well let someone else stand up there and do your presentation for you.”

Josh Massaro

  • “Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Preparation is something I always have known the importance of, but it seems that it is such a vital aspect in Corporate PR. If you are not on your toes and prepared for anything, then you are only making it harder on yourself and your company.”

Jeni Molitor

  • “Planning a campaign is difficult. We were given the task to put together a mini-campaign and there is a lot more that goes into it than what I originally expected. There is so much more that goes into researching a company and promoting a company. Sometimes you have to do it even if you don’t use the product or care for what they are doing, you still need to do your job to the best of your ability.”

Jessica Nguyen

  • “Be engaged. Connect with your audience. Draw them in. Ask them questions or talk to them as if it were one on one. People appreciate it if you connect with them. It makes them feel special and appreciated, and we do appreciate them because they are our audience.”

Michelle Paulino

  • “You Never Stop Learning After College. Professor Nixon continuously tells us that as PR practitioners we have to keep up-to-date on what is going on in the world of PR and in general. A great way in keeping up-to-date is reading the news, listening to podcasts, reading blogs, and reading books about your related field.”
  • “What You Post Online Will Be There Forever. I have been taught this my whole life, but it was not until Professor Nixon’s class that I fully understand. She showed us a website where you could look-up anything that has been posted online, even if it has been deleted. Made me take more precaution when I am posting things on the Internet.”
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Corporate Public Relations (#COMM4363) :: Our Semester in Review

To wind down our semester in Corporate Public Relations, each student will create a short review of his or her chosen chapter from the book Reputation Management by John Doorley and Fred Garcia.

Create a three- to five-minute interactive overview of your chapter for our class. Be sure to include at least three things that PR students should know about your chapter. Get creative! But remember that you only have five minutes maximum; after that, I will get out my hook and pull you off the stage (metaphorically speaking). We’ll do our review session in class on Tuesday, Dec. 7.

Also, write a blog post that covers the highlights of your chapter. You may want to look back to your Reading Notes that you’ve already prepared and posted on your own blog. When the post is done, reply to this blog post with telling me the hyperlink to the new review post you have written.

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Don’t Text in Class . . . And Here’s Why

Text Messaging in Class
As a professor, I'm not ROTFL about cell phones in class

A colleague and I were having a discussion today about cell phone use in class, especially during student presentations. We were of the same mindset that it’s especially rude to be texting while a peer is doing a presentation for a grade. It’s tough enough to be standing up in front of a room full of peers; it’s doubly or triply tough to do it when your peers are (apparently) more interested in a tiny electronic device in their hands than whoever is baring his/her heart and soul by doing a presentation. A great majority of student speakers I have worked with would prefer eye contact and other forms of engagement to the appearance of boredom by the audience. Wouldn’t you?

NOTE: I do have a different view of tweeting in class, if the students are distilling the presentation and sharing soundbites in 140-character segments so that others can also benefit from the presentation. At times, I even encourage tweeting in class.

This reminded me of a blog post I wrote on my Becoming Learner Centered blog a while back. Below is a cross-post of what I wrote in 2008. The sentiment remains the same here in 2010.

Like many educators, I have a short statement in my syllabi stating that I do not want my students to be spending time in class text messaging or surfing the web. But many of my students probably believe this is just because I want them focused on me instead of elsewhere. And that’s partially true.

Why don’t I want them doing other things in class? Read this syllabus excerpt by Professor Cara A. Finnegan. (Cara gave me permission to reproduce her article from her First Efforts blog.)

Technology and the Problem of Divided Attention

In recent years the saturation of cell phones, text messaging, and laptops, combined with the broad availability of wireless in classrooms, has produced something I call the problem of divided attention. A March 25, 2007, article in the New York Times summarized recent studies of productivity in business settings. Researchers found that after responding to email or text messages, it took people more than 15 minutes to re- focus on the “serious mental tasks” they had been performing before the interruption. Other research has shown that when people attempt to perform two tasks at once (e.g., following what’s happening in class while checking text messages), the brain literally cannot do it. The brain has got to give up on one of the tasks in order to effectively accomplish the other. Hidden behind all the hype about multi-tasking, then, is this sad truth: it makes you slower and dumber. For this reason alone you should seek to avoid the problem of divided attention when you are in class. But there’s another reason, too: technology often causes us to lose our senses when it comes to norms of polite behavior and, as a result, perfectly lovely people become unbelievably rude.

For both these reasons, then, turn off your cellphones or set them on silent mode when you come to class; it is rude for our activities to be interrupted by a ringing cellphone. Similarly, text messaging will not be tolerated in class; any student found to be sending or checking text messages during class will be invited (quite publicly) to make a choice either to cease the texting or leave the classroom. You are welcome to bring your laptop to class and use it to take notes, access readings we’re discussing, and the like. You are not welcome to surf the web, check email, or otherwise perform non-class-related activities during class. Here’s my best advice: If you aren’t using it to perform a task specifically related to what we are doing in class at that very moment, put it away.

Thanks, Cara, for explaining why texting in class is not a good idea.

Photo Credit: “Spink!” was originally uploaded to Flickr by apples for lylah

So, what are your thoughts about students texting while other students are giving presentations in class?

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COMM 4363 Final Project Presentations

Photo Credit: The Perfect Software Architect, by Martino Sabia

For your Final Project Presentation in COMM 4363 (Corporate PR), please keep these guidelines in mind. Both the presentation and the final project are due in class on Tuesday, November 16.

In General

  • Share with your class 10 Things People Should Know About [Your Company], based on the research you did for your series of blog posts. Pick and choose the information you find to be most relevant and important to share with your classmates.
  • Dress professionally (business casual at a minimum), just as you would if presenting directly to a client.
  • Follow this basic format (just like you learned in your public speaking class)
    • Introduction (remember to start with an attention getter to lead into your introduction)
    • Body (the 10 Things)
    • Conclusion
  • Please use either PowerPoint or Prezi to augment the spoken part of your presentation, but no Death by PowerPoint. If possible, embed your presentation or presentation slides in your blog.
  • You will use your own computer, not mine. I can help you set it up. (If you have a Mac, bring the appropriate adapter.)
  • Though I love gum and hard candy as much as the next person, avoid them when you are in front of the room.
  • Review my tips on How to NOT Suck as a Guest Speaker; even though this post was about being a guest speaker, not doing a class presentation, many of the guidelines still work well.

Solo Presentation, 5-7 minutes

  • See above

Team Presentation, 17-20 minutes

  • In addition to the 10 Things, also include approximately 10 minutes on an overview of your mini-campaign. Use visuals, as applicable, to back up your points. Be sure to include a section on what you’d do differently if faced with a similar campaign in the future.
  • Each team member must have a speaking role. Practice transitions between speakers, in addition to practicing the content. Also think about where people who are not speaking will be when one of you is presenting. It’s important that the entire team appears engaged during the presentation.

As an Audience Member

  • Treat the speakers with the same level of respect as you would wish for your own presentation.
  • Tweeting during presentations is acceptable. Use the class hashtag of #COMM4363 with any tweets. (Avoid any other use of electronics, please.)
  • Develop a question or two to ask the speakers. I expect to hear at least one question from everyone in the class on the day of presentations.
  • Applaud when the presentations are over.
  • See additional tips on being a good audience member by Cathy Stucker.
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Inside PR :: Students Should Step Up Their Social Media

Listen to the Inside PR Podcast

As a long-time listener of the Inside PR podcast, I look forward to each episode (seriously!), and I miss listening to new episodes during the summer hiatus. I always find something useful to share with my public relations students from listening to the podcast each Wednesday. But this week . . . what a great show! It’s a must-listen for public relations students.

Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joe Thornley spent this entire 20-ish minute podcast sharing their thoughts on why and how students who are planning careers in public relations should become involved in social media, along with what to avoid doing.

Standard Podcast [21:24m]:  Download


Directly from the show notes, some of the highlights are:

  • Joe shares the first tip: remember there is only one you and be consistent with how you present yourself across all mediums.
  • Joe reminds students to build a professional profile from day one.
  • Gini gives some advice for students who are hesitant to start a blog.
  • Martin points out how important it is to be careful about what you post online.
  • Joe stresses the importance of communicating and engaging.
  • Joe shares the 3 places students need to be to build their online profile: a blog of their own, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  • Martin says students need to have a good RSS reader to organize all their feeds and stay current.

Give it a listen. It’s worth your time. And subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or Google Listen so you don’t miss another episode.

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One Week of Twitter :: Fall 2010


First, Learn a Bit About Twitter

  1. Listen to Laura Fitton discuss Twitter for Business.
  2. Listen to my Twitter: What’s in it for me? presentation.
  3. Read 10.5 Ways for PR Students to Get the Most Out of Twitter.

Setting Up Your Twitter Account

  1. Go to Twitter. Click Get Started, and sign up. I prefer it if you use some version of your first and last name as your Twitter ID. (Avoid putting numbers in your Twitter ID, or you may appear like a spammer.)
  2. Upload a photo or avatar.
  3. Write a brief (160-character or fewer) bio. It’s good to mention that you’re a PR student. Consider mentioning your university.
  4. Send a tweet saying “I’m a student in @barbaranixon’s #COMM2322 /#COMM4333 / #COMM4363 /#PRCA3330 class”. (Use the correct number for your class.) Be sure to include the #xxx1234 indicator, with no spaces between the hashtag (#), letters and numbers.
  5. If you haven’t already done so, complete my form that tells me your Twitter username before midnight on  Tuesday, September 21.

Setting Up Your Following List

  1. Follow me plus at least 20 (why not all?) of the people or organizations in my Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students.
  2. Visit your class’ list at TweepML: PRCA 3330, COMM 2322, COMM 4333, COMM 4363 (I will activate these links as soon as I have your class’ Twitter usernames.)
  3. For the purposes of this assignment, you will need to be following at least 40 people.

Using Twitter

  1. Over the course of the next week, send at least twenty tweets (Twitter messages of 140 characters or less). Tip: Rather than tweeting that you’re having ramen for lunch, instead consider what might be of interest to your classmates and followers. Perhaps point others to something interesting or funny you read online. Share a fact you learned in a class. Maybe you could even pose a question that you’d like others to answer. (UPDATE: The tweets cannot all be ones automatically generated from your WordPress blog. The point of this assignment is to engage with others on Twitter, not simply announce.)
  2. In addition to the twenty tweets that you originate, respond to at least five of your classmates’ tweets. To respond, click on the arrow after a tweet. Or you can type the @ symbol followed immediately by a username (such as @barbaranixon).

Additional Information

  1. If you already have a Twitter account that you use primarily for social (not educational or professional) reasons, you may wish to create a fresh, new account for this exercise.
  2. Review my tips on how college students can use Twitter to their advantage and Choosing Whom to Follow on Twitter: My Strategy.
  3. Review Prof. Sam Bradley’s College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101.
  4. I find using the web interface for Twitter to be clunky. I prefer using TweetDeck, a free Adobe Air app that works great on PCs and Macs. TweetDeck makes it really easy to send URLs via Twitter, as it automatically shortens them for you.
  5. I’ll occasionally post information on Twitter and use the hashtag for your class (#COMM2322, #COMM4333, #COMM4363 or #PRCA3330).By using this hashtag, I’m indicating that I want students in this class to pay special attention to the tweet.
  6. OPTIONAL: If you’d like to publicize your blog posts via Twitter, you can it automatically in WordPress.

Blog About Your Experience

After the week is over, add a 300-word (minimum) post to your blog about the experience and what you got out of it. Include a link to your Twitter profile (here’s mine). Be sure to include at least one way you might find value in continuing your account in Twitter. Your blog post about this experience count as your Topic of the Week for the appropriate week.

Questions? Just send me a DM (direct message) or an @ (reply) in Twitter!

NOTE: Many thanks to Kaye Sweetser and Karen Russell for their ideas prompting this assignment.