Hi! My name is Elisha Chan and I am a fourth-year CMMB major and one of the BSA Academic Coordinators :) With the return of in-person classes, many students (as am I) are feeling stressed and anxious about their abilities and grades being put to the test. A resource called the Student Success Centre (SSC) is provided by the University of Calgary with the mission to help students achieve their academic goals. This service is completely free and is often overlooked (in my opinion) because of how busy our individual lives get. All our time feels accounted for and finding an hour or two to spare per week seems impossible. I completely understand the feeling and hope this blog post on how the SSC could help you achieve your goals and get the most from your university experience is helpful!
A majority of academic time is spent listening to our professors and attempting to learn the material from our classes, but this assumes that we have all developed a good studying method that is effective and efficient. I know that when I began university, my studying techniques had to adjust to account for the increased difficulty. However, most of the changes constituted me studying for longer hours which was not great for my health. The SSC has lots of different workshops to help give tips on writing, exam preparation, effective note-taking, mitigating procrastination, etc.
The SSC also provides one-on-one appointments! If you are looking to have that extra boost in your grades, then you are able to meet with an academic development specialist. They will assess your strengths and weaknesses and help develop techniques to help reach your goals. This is unique in that the advice given is tailored to the individual and not just a blanket solution they give to every student. Academic development specialist appointments can also be made if you are considering grad school or professional school. They have tips on what makes a strong application and can help brainstorm narratives that would be beneficial in highlighting to promote you as the best candidate.
Writing at a university level can be difficult and the SSC has one-on-one appointments to help! They will likely discuss your writing process and give effective strategies on how to improve. They also can review graded papers and help identify methods to improve for future written assignments. These appointments can be ongoing throughout the semester in order to continue working on your writing skills.
As you can see, the SSC has a lot of resources and it is definitely worth giving a quick glance at! You never know what you might find useful and how much it could change your academic life for the better :) To learn more and to book the appointments: https://ucalgary.ca/student-services/student-success
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