On a hot September day last year, a freshman-aged me sat down to do the first college reading assignment of her time at university. I had given myself an hour before the class to read it, and expected to have time to grab lunch beforehand as well. After all, I love reading, I’m naturally fast at it, and it’s on a subject I’m passionate about. Easy, right? As I, and so many college students have found, I was not right.
I’m now a sophomore, still majoring in political science and French. Political science, as an academic field, must have millions of academic papers on theories, historical events, and voting data for us students to sift through. French, although more niche, has practically locked me onto my desk for hours as I try to make my way through 19th-century prose in a language that is not my own. Even as someone who loves her majors, and has been successful in their classes, reading-heavy courses are to be taken seriously. Pages from textbooks, pre-existing academic literature, and the professor’s own books are very daunting when you first read about the assignments on the syllabus, and they can take hours to get done. But, you can also make some adjustments to get yourself through them a little quicker–and still get a decent amount of information from them.
Plan Ahead
I’ve been made fun of before for spending a day before classes begin writing assignments in my planner months in advance. But, since I’ve started doing that, I’ve never been caught off-guard with an extensive reading.
Whether it be a week in advance or a month in advance, planning out reading time in accordance will help your stress levels and leave you with some free time. If you know you’ll have club meetings on Wednesday nights, and your readings will be due on Thursday mornings, you’ll be far more likely to get the reading done on Tuesday night if you’ve assigned that time for yourself on a planner or calendar. If you haven’t, well, you might be up late Wednesday night trying to speed through a reading that’s probably already really confusingly worded. Trust me, I’m speaking from personal experience.
It’s also really nice to kind of get a viewpoint of what your semester will look like when you’re just getting started. It motivates you, and it also helps you know what weeks you’ll be swamped with homework, and what weeks might be good to schedule a mini-vacation or ski weekend.
Read Wisely, and Don’t Get Frustrated
I went into college classes assuming that the people who wrote the articles I assigned were amazing writers who always wrote in the most concise way possible (what a great world that would be!). The truth is, many scholars who write articles about their research findings don’t care that much about how easy their work is to digest–it’s not meant for public consumption, and it’s not meant to be a fun read. It’s meant to get their research out to scholars who have also dedicated their lives to this certain subject and don’t care about writing in simple terms. Don’t feel bad if you have to read a sentence ten times over, and don’t feel bad if you can’t understand what an author is trying to say no matter how many times you read it. Take a break, read it out loud, or go to office hours to talk it over with your professor.
This also means that you can get the content of a reading down without reading every single word of the piece, especially if it’s a textbook or academic article. A strategy my roommate introduced to me was to read the introduction paragraph, the first sentence of each following paragraph (which should be the author’s topic sentence), and the conclusion paragraph. If the author is following a clear writing outline, you should be able to get the gist of a long reading by doing this. That being said, sometimes authors don’t follow clear writing outlines, but you will be able to pick up on whether or not you can use this strategy pretty quickly with a text.
Connect the Content to Lecture Material
This point is pretty self-explanatory. Your professor assigned you this reading for a reason. Too often have I kept what I’ve learned in readings and in lectures completely separate in notes and in mind, only to realize that they support each other. Ideas taught in lectures are often supported with evidence from research articles. Conversely, confusing points in readings will often be made clear by your professor the next time you’re in class.
Make Notes In Your Own Words
When you have a lot of readings and are copying down notes, it’s easy to write down what the author is saying word-for-word and call it a day. This will not help you. Although it may take more time, if you reword points in a way that makes sense to you, it will help in the long run. Think of it like this: time spent writing your own notes that work for you is time saved frantically scrolling through pages of notes copied from scholars when you have two hours left to turn in an essay.
Remember Names
I will forever be angry about this tip, as I had a final exam question last semester asking for the name of an author of an article that I recognized the title of and knew I had read the night before. Of course, I didn’t take note of the author’s name and definitely didn’t get that question right (I think I answered with some generic name like “Johnson” or something).
Although I don’t think a valid way to show knowledge about a subject is to cite names, the harsh truth of college (apparently) is that some professors do. Keep that in mind when reviewing before exams.
Make Sacrifices
You’re not going to be able to read every word of every text if you’re in a reading-heavy major and your life will be a lot easier once you accept that. If it’s 2 a.m. and you still have 30 pages of reading left to do, you’re going to get as much content from reading as you would closing the computer and going to sleep. If you have two readings due and one is for a class that’s overall harder, do that one and leave the other one for a less busy day.
Reading assignments are more adult than homework you get that you have to physically turn in, not only because you are the only one holding yourself accountable for actually doing it, but because you have to prioritize and be smart enough to decide what can be left for later or just skimmed.
Talk To Your Professor
Some professors like to include questions from reading material on exams. Some only do lecture material. Some professors will make you cite certain readings in papers, and some couldn’t care less. None of them will be offended if you ask what their preferences are, and all should understand that you’re going to need to dedicate less time to some of their content.
Overall, reading-heavy courses can be really painful. But they don’t necessarily have to be. Working smarter, not harder, and trying to understand where the professor is coming from with assignments will help loads with your coursework. Who knows? You might actually learn something.