Advice for new students: Etiquette and Study Skills
- Turn your cell-phones off.
- Know your instructor’s name (even if they don’t know yours). You should also know your Teaching Assistant’s name if you have one.
- Put your name, email address, class, and section number on all correspondence. Some lecturers teach as many as four classes with up to 300 students. Correspondence should also include class and section number in the subject line. Subject lines such as “Student” or “Question” are not helpful.
- You MUST include a signature file in all email communications. This is configured (by you…) to include at least your name. Go to Tumail’s Preferences section.
- It is appropriate to include a salutation in email (Prof. Howard,… or Dear…)
- It is generally appropriate to address instructors as “Prof. XXX” or “Dr. XXX” in the first instance. They may welcome being called by their first name, but let them tell you this. It’s not appropriate to call them (for example) “Dr. Alix.”
- Giving the appearance of being clueless is almost as bad as being clueless. If you like to talk a lot, that’s great (most of us do too!). But feel free to consider what you say before you say it. And give your peers a chance…
- Whoever told you “there’s no such thing as a silly question” was being silly. A stupid question is a question you could easily have answered yourself with a little effort—for example by looking again at the syllabus or assignment. You’ll impress your peers and instructors alike if you help yourself first.
- On the other hand, don’t be afraid to ask substantive questions. We’re here to teach—to help you learn. Different students learn in different ways. But if you don’t learn, it’s usually our fault.
- Although we don’t judge people on appearances, your attitude—including the way you hold yourself in class and in person—inevitably affects our perception of you. This is as true in school as in the workplace. Most of us carry ourselves differently in different contexts, just as we may use a different idiom when conversing with different people. This need not be pretentious: it may just be a matter of politeness. So, it behooves you to adopt a professional attitude, so to speak, when interacting with instructors.
- Keep track of your grades. Don’t wait until the end of the semester to ask why an assignment has no grade. Bringing lost papers to your instructor’s attention early is essential.
- Learn the apostrophe rules.
- We think it’s funny that students today get up and go to the toilet during class. Do you? It seems bladders are significantly smaller than they used to be…
- Turn your cell-phones off.
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