Center for Academic Success teaches students study skills

Khalifah Jamison//Contributing Writer

To promote academic prosperity in the FIU community, the Center for Academic Success hosted an interactive-based leadership development seminar on Wednesday, Oct. 14, in GC 314.

With both graduate and undergraduate students attending the program, attendees were taught how to effectively convert leisure-time into study time, manage study groups and how to properly study for their classes.

The program began with one of the lead tutors, Brian Biez, a senior and political science major at FIU, teaching students how to strengthen their memory within a scholastic setting and still balance their social life.

According to Biez, for every course a student is taking, they need to allocate at least three to four hours of study time per week to that class. This study time can either encompass passive studying, which involves studying while watching television or doing some other pastime activity, or active studying, which is the student dedicating time to solely focusing on studying and the textbook.

While it is important to distribute one’s time between studying and social life, certain social activities can harm a student’s memory.

Biez mentioned that consuming alcohol can deter the memory up until 48 hours after consumption, even if a student does not enter an inebriated state. Along with this, not getting the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep can cause academic performance to deteriorate.

The seminar then went on to a question and answer based session between the tutors from the Center for Academic Success and the students attending the program. Instead of stating arbitrary scenarios that were irrelevant to the students’ scholastic career, the attendees informed the tutors about some of their academic tribulations and the tutors responded with a unique step-by-step guide for each individual on how to fix their problems.

The Center for Academic Success prides themselves on the care and attention they give to FIU students.

According to Federico Castra, a lead tutor for the Center of Academic Success and a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in psychology, “We want students to know that we are here and willing to do anything to facilitate their academic prosperity”.

And with the increasing number of students being put on academic probation, Castra hopes to help even more people get back on the path to success.

“At the end of the day, I am here to help. I once worked with a pupil for four years. She kept coming back, so I kept helping”, said Castra.

However, despite the all the assistance the tudors are willing to give, it ultimately relies upon the student to go out and search for the help. Castra mentioned that it takes more than one session of tutoring to teach a student all they need to know about the subject. In order for a student to truly comprehend all the information that is given to them, they need to come back for tutoring 3 to 4 more times before the day of their exam.

The Center of Academic Success frequently collaborates with other educational departments such as the Math, English, Science and Psychology department in order to help as many people as they can. They plan on holding more leadership development seminars and they are going to continue push students toward academic excellence.

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