Are you at risk of suffering from a fatal student disease?
Long and sad experience has shown us that many students each year contract one or more of the following serious conditions. All of these conditions are either preventable or treatable, but prevention is better than treatment. Take action now to protect yourself! Otherwise, you may not be studying this time next year.
The Midsemester Droop
This is a debilitating, but not fatal condition caused by lack of academic stamina. In extreme cases, the condition becomes that fatal disease: Final Exam Sag. This condition is best prevented by sensible scheduling of both study and recreational time, right from the beginning of the year.
Those students most at risk from Midsemester Droop tend to react to the demands of study as they occur, rather than plan ahead. Form or join a study group for mutual support. Use good planning to ensure that intense periods of study are interspersed with relaxation or social activities. Your stamina will be maintained and you will protect yourself from the dreaded Final Exam Sag.
The Incredible Shrinking Disease
Every other student in your class is a genius and you're a cretin, right? You can't ask questions in class without showing everyone what a fool you are. You can't approach your lecturer for help in case they think you're a twit. So you shrink into a bundle of insecurity and embarrassment, and your academic progress stops cold. This is a terminal disease! Suffers eventually become invisible!
The first step in preventing, or treating this disease is to recognise that the condition is due to extreme self-consciousness, not to academic ineptitude. If you can convince yourself that there are probably other students in the class dying to ask what may appear to be stupid questions, then be a hero and ask on their behalf. Lecturers depend on student questions, especially elementary ones, to assist the learning process.
Go and see your lecturer, often. Most lecturers are sympathetic towards students who are trying to overcome their problems. If you find your lecturer's attitude utterly unhelpful, go and see another lecturer in the same area or your course co-ordinator.
Staff in Student Services are ready, and able, to help you with study skills programs and will lend a sympathetic ear. Make use of the services provided by the university and get your money's worth.
Whatever you do, don't succumb to the Incredible Shrinking Disease.
The 50% Sharpshooter Syndrome
This is a very serious, and usually fatal condition, whose victims exhibit the delusion that they can aim for a bare 50% pass in an exam or test and actually hit their target. Since very few students possess an academic crystal ball, this is a particularly sad delusion that nearly always results in failure.
At all costs, protect yourself from this disease. The only preventative measure is to aim for 100% in every test and exam, but to realise that you will rarely, if ever, achieve this perfect mark. You will, however, feel much better about your grades and about yourself.
The Manana Syndrome
This is the general name for a set of diseases that are endemic in universities. Examples are:
- The Extension Grovel
- The Protracted Elongated Assignment Extension Rationalisation
- The "I can't finish my first year assignment because I'm thinking about my PhD thesis" disease
- The "I'm under the doctor's care" disease
- The "my assignment was ruined when a Scud/Cruise Missile landed on my house " Syndrome (*Strike one according to your political inclinations)
- The Floppy Disk Virus Disease
- The Carnivorous Computer Condition.