By the end of this section, I hope you will have:

(1)       explored your motives for being at university - and possibly adopted some new ones.

(2)       made sure that your reasons for being a university student are sufficiently strong to keep you going during “bad” times!

(3)       thought through the main differences between university and school.

This is probably the most important part of this particular study skills guide. It’s all very well to have looked at the way we learn, but we need to have good reasons for learning. After all, learning is quite hard work! Who does hard work without good reasons?

Being a university student should be a happy and rewarding part of your life. Learning can be fun - indeed it should be fun - even when it’s hard work! A University Principal once told me “all learning is accompanied by some pain”. I disagree, though if he’d said “effort” instead of “pain” I would have agreed. Effort can be painful, especially if you haven’t developed the relevant muscles enough. So in a way, I hope these study skills guide will help you to develop the “muscles” you need for a successful university career, and that your efforts will be as painless and productive as possible.
I’m assuming that since you are reading this, you’re either a university student already, or soon to become one. It is often said that the most important ingredient for success is motivation. Now, there are many kinds of motivation, as we’ll see shortly. Some motivation is good and positive, but sometimes more negative factors can cause their own kind of motivation.

I agree that it is very useful to be highly motivated. However, motivation on its own isn’t nearly enough to guarantee success.

That’s why I’m dealing with motivation in this section, then using most of the rest of these study skills guide to help you develop your own skills - all sorts of skills in fact - all helping towards that guarantee of success.
So, if you’re highly motivated all ready, great. If not, let’s see whether we can sort out some good reasons for being a student that you can adopt. But even if we can’t, the rest of this series should help you pick up the skills you’ll need - and maybe the motivation will come along with the skills. (If you’re good at doing something, you usually enjoy doing it. So if you become good at studying, you’re likely to enjoy studying - what better motivation?)

Right, then, let’s see what your reasons are for being a university student. Try the Self Analysis Question (Activity) below, then turn to my “response” towards the back of the study skills guide. Don’t cheat and look ahead, in these questions I want you to do some thinking before you compare your thoughts with mine.

How did you get on? Did your reasons for being at university stand up to scrutiny? Or perhaps have you now added one or two other reasons to your original ones? The main thing is to have some reasons you believe in, some of your own. All of us need to have reasons for doing anything that takes a bit of effort and determination. We need to be able to identify the benefits which will come to us at the end of our efforts.

Now, having read my comments about each of the options above, I hope you’ll have a clearer idea of why you are a student. Perhaps even, you may have rearranged one or two priorities.

Once you’ve found some strong reasons of your own for being a university student, it’s quite useful to pin them up somewhere, so that on the odd difficult day, you can take heart and determination from them, and tackle whatever tasks like ahead.

Of course, as you go through university, it’s perfectly alright to adjust and modify your reasons for being there. If circumstances change, and your original reasons seem less important than they once were, look out for additional better ones to take their place.

What happens if you suddenly find that you haven’t any good reasons for pressing on? Well of course, you can always give up! You won’t be shot or jailed for opting out of education! However, it’s a lot easier to opt out, than to get back in again.

Later in your life, you may still be able to continue your education, but it will be much more difficult. You may have additional family responsibilities then. You will have become used to a higher standard of living - going back to being a hard-up student will be much tougher than you think. And you probably will have to start at the beginning again, for your subject fields will have developed and advanced, so things you once knew may not be all that useful to you. All in all, it’s better to press on than to give up hoping to come back later.

Now that you’ve explored your motives for being at university, and thought about the main differences between university and school, it’s time to make yourself a checklist.

(a)       Take a blank sheet of paper. Write down your reasons for being at university - as many as you can think of - good ones and bad ones too! Then put a tick beside each “solid” reason - the sort of reason that will keep you going when things are a bit tough now and then. Put the list somewhere where you can see it most days - inside your wardrobe, maybe - or better still on your wall, if you’re willing to share your reasons with friends.

(b)       Using a different colour pen, add to your list of reasons a few key words reminding you of the differences between university and school that you’ve diagnosed. Seeing these words regularly will help you tune into coping with the differences as and when you experience them.

Now that you’ve finished this Introductory study skills guide in my study-skills series, let me remind you of the objectives that I hope you’ve already achieved.

I hope you now can:

(1)       Use this and other study skills guide in this series “under your own steam”, finding out about your strengths and weaknesses by tackling the Activities, then studying my responses.

(2)       describe the important stages in the way you learn.

(3)       take opportunities to improve the learning processes which most influence your success at university.

(4)       now and then explore your motives of being at university - and possibly adopt some new ones.

(5)       make sure that your reasons for being a university student are sufficiently strong to keep you going during “bad” times!

(6)       work out the main differences between university and school - and the responsibilities that lie with you.

Which study skills guide you go on to next depends on your needs - but I suggest any of ‘‘Organising Your Studies’’, ‘‘Lectures’’ and ‘‘Making Learning Tools’’ may be good areas to continue your study-skills development.  

The question asked you to explore these “Reasons for being a university student”. Checking back which reasons you chose or rejected, look now at my comments about each reason.

(a)       “I’m here because after getting appropriate qualifications at school, it seemed logical to go on to university’’.

If you choose this as a reason, well done for being honest. Our education system rather seems to channel people along particular paths. If you did well at school you would feel “expected” to continue your education. Also, your friends probably did much the same thing. There is a danger, however. Quite a few students get to university, and don’t really quite know what they’re doing there. Faced with a lot of responsibility for their own learning, and all sorts of interesting distractions, they sort of lose direction. So, it’s worth having some stronger reasons of your own for being a student, reasons which will help you out when the going gets a bit tough.

(b)       “I worked very hard at school, because I very much wanted to go on to university”.

This is a stronger reason for being at university. If the reason you worked hard at school was to give you the chance to continue at university, you’ve already got a lot of motivation.

(c)        “I’m a ‘mature student’ coming to university after a fair bit of experience of work”.

If university lecturers are asked “what’s different about mature students?” many will reply “They know what they’re doing at university”. In other words, mature students usually have well-worked-out reasons for being at university. Of course, many younger students have good reasons as well. But mature students are often much more willing to “have a go” at things, and are also often considerably more critical of universities - a good thing.

(d)       “I’m at university because other people (for example parents) expected me to go on with my education”.

This reason worries me. If you’re at university because other people expect it of you, you could feel under all sorts of pressure “not to let them down”. I’ve seen the sad results of this sort of pressure so many times. Don’t let other people’s expectations seriously damage your enjoyment of university! The best thing is to get a good set of reasons of your own why you intend to be a successful student.

(e)       “I’m a student because I want to do the same as other friends or relatives have done”.

This can lead to powerful motivation, trying to live up to the success of relatives or friends. However, it’s best not to have your personal reasons for being at university revolving around other people. If you have your own reasons, they will be much more enduring, and will help you keep going through the odd sticky patch.

(f)        “I simply love learning new things, university seems a good place to be doing it”.

If you choose this reason, great! There’s nothing better than to be a bit addicted to learning new things. All you need now is to make sure that your skills at learning new things are as well-polished as they can be - and that’s what this series of study skills guide is about. Then, you can enjoy being at university even more.

(g)       “I really decided on university because I want to have a good time. I expect I’ll manage to learn as well”.

Should students at university have a good time? Plenty of people think they shouldn’t! “You’re there to work” they’ll tell you. What am I telling you, then? Well, you are there to work, if you want to be successful, but that doesn’t stop you having a good time as well. In fact, the more efficient you become at working, the more time you’ll have left over to do all the other things that are part of university life. Perhaps I dare say that the work you do at university is your “training”, and all the rest is your “education”.

(h)       “University will give me the chance to find my own feet, and express my interest”.

Certainly university is a place for standing on your own feet, and expressing all sorts of interest. You’ll stand on your own feet all the better if you know the academic side of your studies is going well, and that’s where I hope to help you with these study skills guide.

(i)         If you had reasons of your own, check them against the following criteria:

•       Are they your reasons, not someone else’s?

•       Will they motivate you to keep going when things are tough?

•       Do they apply to your whole future career, rather than just the next year or two?

There are all sorts of things you could have thought of regarding differences between school and university. I’ve listed four below - I only asked you for three! Compare your list with mine, and think whether any points I’ve made apply particularly to you too.

(a)       It’s very much up to you at university.

What I’m getting at is that at university, it’s more of a “swim or sink” situation than at school. At schools, teachers probably prodded, coaxed, threatened, encouraged, and so on - all sorts of ways of helping to keep your nose to the grindstone. At university, your lecturers will want you to succeed, but don’t see it as part of their role to do a lot of prodding, coaxing, and so on. You’re reckoned to be mature enough to make your own decisions about how much work you’re going to do.

(b)       There’s a lot of difference between university lectures and school lessons.

For a start, there may be many more students in a lecture than in a classroom. Furthermore, you’ll not be told much about what to write and what not to write in lectures. You’ll have to decide for yourself. In the study skills guide on lectures, we’ll go into this in detail.

(c)        There’s all sorts of “other” kinds of teaching-learning situations at university.

You may have tutorials, seminars, laboratory work, field work, small-group teamwork, and so on. In addition, you’re expected to be making use of the library, and reading round your subjects under your own steam.

(d)       There’s much more to distract you from your work than when you were at school!

You’ll probably have all sorts of friends, interest, activities and responsibilities, all requiring your time and energy. You’ll have responsibility for feeding yourself, laundry, shopping, maybe housework too! All this takes time and energy. At university, you’re learning to stand on your own feet, and learning to get along with other people. Sometimes, this can be harder than your university work itself!   Those are four areas where university is very different from school. Well done if you thought of most of them, and even better if you thought of more. Once you know about these differences, you’re in a good position to adjust to them successfully.