What are your plans after high school? If you have intentions of furthering your education, then there are certain academic skills you should obtain to assist you to stand out when you eventually enter college.
What most people do not know is that education is just like a job, therefore, a certain level of skill is required of you if you wish to succeed in your field. In this article, you will read the top 10 academic skills that will prepare you for college.
We have listed below, the top 10 academic skills that will prepare you for college.
List of academic skills that will prepare you for college
1. Assertiveness
You should not be surprised that this skill made it to the top of our list. This skill is what helps you stand up and boldly speak for yourself when the need arises.
In most colleges lie a bunch of bullies and weirdos, you will need this skill to be able to stop or prevent these preys and weirdos from stepping on you. If you value yourself well enough not to let anyone ridicule you and get away with it easily, then you should acquire this skill.
Being assertive doesn’t necessarily make you a pompous person, it only makes you aware of the rights of others and ready to settle disputes with others too.
2. Self-Management Skills
Self-management is one of the major skills that will prepare you for college, and most of the progress that you’ll attain may be tied to this crucial skill. The skill helps you to be able to manage your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions productively in college.
Of course, there is nobody to guide or scrutinize every decision you make and action you take, you must know how to manage yourself very well for your own sake.
3. Communication Skills
As a student in college, coming across professors, advisors, staff members, students, and others who will want to engage you every here and then, cannot be. Since you cannot avoid this, you should be prepared to communicate with various people in various ways occasionally and you can accomplish this when you have the right communication skills.
If you lack good communication skills, the best step to take is to prepare yourself for it, learn it now because it is one of the essential academic skills to prepare you for college.
4. Responsibility
Yes, being responsible may not be what you’re expecting to see, but it is an academic skill that makes you do things to the very best of your abilities if you want to reach your goal and also be able to account for it.
Responsibility can come in different forms such as compassion, accountability, honesty, fairness, and also courage amongst others. Having this skill will go a long way to ensure that you have a sense of purpose.
5. Critical-thinking Skills
Truthfully, if you cannot think critically, you’ll barely be able to come out with an excellent grade in college. You need more critical thinking in college more than what you are already used to at high school. Ability to think on the spot and profer solutions to issues posed to you is key.
It is never too late to pick up this skill and start working on it before going to college. As a way of achieving this, you can start by giving yourself hypothetical life and challenging questions and then think through the most suitable solutions.
6. Time Management
The best way to describe a college is home of activities, because it is usually filled up with lots of activities, and if you don’t know how to manage your time properly, you will surely get consumed by it, you will see yourself engaging in irrelevant and less productive activities.
The first step to take is to start learning how to prepare weekly schedules such as taking note of the time for classes, studying, meals, work activities, and time with friends. Although nobody likes to do this, nevertheless, you have to arrange them hierarchically depending on the level of preferences. If you do this, you’ll rarely mismanage your time.
7. Stress Management Skills
In case you do not know, college is one of the most stressful places to be. As a freshman, you can’t be bored because there will always be something that will get you preoccupied once you are in college.
In college, freshers take general courses, therefore, there are always lectures to attend, assignments to do, studies to take, and lots more. You must find a means to balance this stress such as taking care of yourself; regular exercises, good food, adequate rest, prayer, and/or meditation. These are ways you can engage in self-care and minimize stress.
8. Collaboration/Teamwork Skills
This skill is a necessity in college if you desire to succeed. With this skill, you can comfortably work together with people towards achieving a shared goal with them.
Some of the things required in teamwork/collaboration skills are communication, active listening, respect, goal-oriented. You have to pay close attention to that before heading towards college.
9. Independent Work Skills
Aside from having collaboration skills, there are times when you may need to work alone because not every work in college requires a collective effort, therefore you must be good at being independent and working alone too.
Truthfully, you are more likely to find yourself working independently, as such may be the case most times than group work.
What will distinguish you from the rest? It is the ability to comfortably come up with information, work towards getting a solution to every problem that comes your way.
10. Study Skills
Now let us talk about the most important of all skills after you have worked on the academic skills to prepare you for college – Study Skills.
Unfortunately, a good number of college students lack this skill, they are yet to develop exceptional study skills. Some of the activities that will help enhance your classroom performance are knowing how to read materials well, textbooks, take notes, take several-choice tests, and use the library.
The best way to go about this is to start now to work on your study skills by maybe testing yourself from time to time by reading for 4 hours straight.
Finally, we have succeeded in listing the top 10 skills you need to acquire before jetting out to college. Nobody said it was going to be easy, but it can get better and navigate your way through college if you adhere to paying attention to the skills we mentioned.