lowk unethical GPA tips ur seniors won’t tell u 😬

hello zesties~

we r now 3 weeks into uni… ur classes r tough ur palms r sweaty… but do not worry!!! i got ur back!!!!! 🤝

if yall saw my other acad-related posts u wld know that i’m not rly an academic wizz 😔 but hey, despite that, i managed to cinch a 3.85/4.0! for context, i’m in biz & studying a major that’s quite quantitative (not finance)

as a y4 student, these are 6 tips i wish someone told me when i entered y1 instead of things like ‘manage ur time’… bc lord knows when my cat almost died during sem i wasn’t managing shit 😵‍💫

‼️ LENGTHY POST AHEAD bc im a yapper‼️

1️⃣ FIGURE UR PROFS OUT

literally just psychoanalyse them 🫣

having a prof that likes you won’t give you a 4.0 right away, but what i got was:

- leniency for missing a deadline

- leniency for submitting the wrong file

- really? good? grades that i literally cannot explain bc i am NOT GOOD at the subject ?? 🤷‍♀️

‘talk to your prof’ is bad and generic advice that only works for SOME 💀 i had profs who clearly just wanted a break & they loved students who were self-directed high-performers. for them, i kept quiet but made sure to deliver on my work 🤝 & ik it worked bc they would send me indiv emails congratulating me for my scores

bottom line is, know your profs & know how to make them like you. don’t go in expecting to be rigged up, but if you prove to be a nice student with a good track record, they tend to close one eye when u slip up 😌

2️⃣ CLASS PART NO MATTER WHAT

when u think abt it, cp just free points for.. yapping.. damn wasted if u don’t capitalise on it esp when it can go up to 20% of ur grade 🤯

what i like to do is DON’T THINK, JUST RAISE. once my hand is up i can’t put it down right? ofc i’ll only do this with questions i can answer but the key is to disconnect ur body from ur mind & just get ur hand up in the air anyways 😀

‘won’t ppl tilt at me for cping so much??’ maybe… but:

- hate the game, not the player

- obviously, don’t snatch away other ppl’s chances. 1-3x a class is good enough for most profs

- don’t directly disagree with people bc no one likes a hater (unless its like a debate-y mod then wtvs lol). if you must provide a contrarian view, frame it as ‘on the flip side’ or ‘another way to look at this’

3️⃣ SENIORS ARE YOUR BEST RESOURCE

forget senior’s notes bc i believe that u will only learn from notes that u make urself. the real GOLD MINE is past projects esp projects that scored A- & above. they r a MUST-HAVE for me. if your seniors don’t have it, just be annoying & ask around until u find someone who does 🤷‍♀️

this might be obvious to some of yall but i went my entire y1 without it. the difference is literally night & day LOL

some profs will have a specific preference for what they want in a report that the rubrics won’t reveal. additionally, u also know what areas to supplement based on their contructive comments in ur seniors’ work. no better way to work than to work backwords! 👍👍

4️⃣ SLACK STRATEGICALLY

perhaps the most unethical tip here 💀

uni is SO hectic & sometimes 24hrs in a day just isnt enough to juggle everything. there’s times i put off some projects to focus on other work. typically the factors i will consider are:

- how forgiving my groupmates are

- how screwed they are without me (if rly cmi, i will work on it regardless 🤷‍♀️)

- how screwed my other commitments are without me (sometimes i slack in order to compensate for someone else’s slacking 💀)

- how much i hv already contributed

it’s quite utilitarian, but desperate times call for desperate measures. it’s hard facts that putting some groupwork on the backburner was how i pulled through with my other committments 🥱

anyways bc i would slack off for a week or 2 & then get my shit tgt immediately, i never got into trouble. at the end of the day, i still contributed a fair share so alls g 🤝 AGAIN, this tip is not an excuse to slack 🔫

5️⃣ BEFRIEND YOUR TAs

(or at least don’t piss them off)

this links back to point 1️⃣. as someone who has TA-ed for 3 profs, my experience has been that:

- profs like their TAs and are quite protective of them

- even if the TA says nothing, profs can sense when students are being rude to them, & they’re VERY VERY disapproving of it

making ur prof like u is common sense. what’s lesser known is that if ur TA doesn’t like u (for a good reason), ur prof probably won’t either.

moreover, even if i myself don’t do it, i’ve heard stories abt TA favouritism when it comes to marking class part. can’s verify how true this is bc its a rumour 🤷‍♀️ but i heard abt it several times so make of this what u will

for me, i’m only willing to (outside of my contractual obligations) help NICE & RESPECTFUL students 🫣 my bar is literally just: say ‘thank you’ when i help u out. like think abt it, i’m only human. why ON EARTH would i offer help *outside of my contracted period* to a student who is completely unappreciative? 😵‍💫

tldr lots of intangible benefits if ur TA likes u as a student! if being sociable isn’t ur forte, then at least js make sure u don’t come across as rude in ur interactions with them 🤩

6️⃣ PICK YOUR GROUPMATES WISELY

unless i’m forced to take a compulsory module with preassigned groupings, i will ALWAYS do this. while learning to work with other ppl is important, i learnt the hard way tht incompetent people can absolutely screw ur project over ❌ sometimes that’s easily 30-40% of ur grades down the drain

figure out what r ur non-negotiables for u & ur group to PERRORM. for me, my group MUST consist of *majority* friends or friends-of-friends so i know they have a decent work ethic. tbh i just dont trust being grouped with a rando as it has ended badly for me about 70% of the time (for example, someone quite literally faked a family death to get out of doing work. the same relative also ‘died’ the previous sem… yea…)

in some modules, u also want to lookout for projectmates frm diff degrees & majors. having a mix of competencies in ur group can help with better idea generation 🤩

on that note, i DO NOT recommend grouping w people *purely* based on their gpa or achievements. it’s comforting to know that someone brings brains to the table, but i have also grouped with enough upz people to know that the reason they have time to be upz is bc they don’t spend much time on groupwork 😵 so yeah pick ur poison

so yeah aside from mugging these are some solid tips tht i have for any prospective academic climbers 👍 ALL THE BEST & i hope this makes ur uni life easier <3 feel free to drop me a follow bc i plan to spill more tea in the future too 🫢🫢

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