Sometimes you’ll get a little bit behind with your studies. A semester is just a brief four months and it passes by in a blur. Sure the blurry effect could have been alcohol induced but hey, at least you had fun.

Only now it’s exam time and like a slap in the face you realize you may be screwed. Exams are sneaking up and you start to hyperventilate as the panic wells up. Flipping through your notes you realize you missed more than your fair share of lectures. Your textbook? Still in its plastic wrap. It’s a horror story waiting to happen.

It’s okay, you can relax. We’ve got you covered.

We’re releasing a free report just for the students who are rather behind with their studies. Not that they’re the only ones who can benefit from this, the report details a pretty great study strategy which applies to almost all students in almost all disciplines. In fact many of the savvy students who get the top marks use this exact strategy.

It’s a shred of hope for those behind, and a huge push forward for those who already caught up with their work.

How do you get it? Simply click here (right click ‘Save As’ to put it on your hard drive). You can even share it with your friends if you’d like to. In fact, we’d be thrilled if you did.

When exams are bearing down on you it’s oh-so-tempting to stay up late to cram in as much information in as you possibly can. Most of the time this is a rather poor strategy to use, though if you’ve skipped out on studying all semester and have an exam at 9:00 tomorrow morning then staying up all night is your only real choice.

For the rest of the students out there, come exam time the last thing on your mind should be late night study sessions.

There are three really strong reasons why you should just pack it in at an appropriate time…

You’ll Be More Productive
Let’s say you wake up at 9:00 a.m. and by 10:00 a.m. you’re busy studying. You study all day, taking breaks for meals, and eventually 10:00 p.m. rolls around. At this point your mind is probably fried, you’re physically exhausted, and your eyes ache from staring at tiny textbook font all day long.

Over the day your productivity has decreased by large measures – continuing to study isn’t going to be the smart choice here. To make matters worse, not only will you become even less productive as the night goes on, you’re also going to build a sleep deficit which will only make it more difficult to study the next day.

By going to sleep at an appropriate time you’ll wake up the next morning feeling fresh and ready for a new day of studying.

You’ll Have Less Stress
If you stay up late and wake up early you won’t be getting enough sleep. Studies have shown that individuals which get long amounts of unbroken sleep will have decreased amounts of cortisol, the stress hormone. The less stressed you are the more you’ll be able to concentrate and perform under pressure – something very handy for exams.

You’ll Feel Better
Feeling great feels…well great! If you have a three week exam period and you start pulling crazy hours the week before that’s almost a month where you will feel miserable. We know that exams are difficult time but you shouldn’t need to put in eighteen-plus hour days each day. If you’re doing that we can’t help but question the effectiveness of your study habits.

So there you have it, three powerful reasons to wrap the day up at a good time and get a solid night’s sleep.

For science students labs will always be a rather complicated and painful part of your university experience. That’s not to say they’re not fun from time to time, though most students do find them rather arduous.

When it comes to surviving labs here is everything you need to know…

Show Up Prepared
Make sure you have a good grasp of what’s going to be happening in the lab before you get there. Those pesky pre-readings are generally pretty important so make sure you take the time to complete them.

Don’t Slack in the Beginning
The nasty truth about labs is you’ll often to be racing to finish them. Rather than taking it easy in the beginning bust yourself right away so you’re left with plenty of time at the end.

As a bonus, occasionally you’ll make a mistake (especially in Chemistry labs) so being ahead of the clock gives you extra time to correct it.

Follow the Lab Guidelines to the Letter
It’s impossible to skip steps in a chemical reaction or physical analysis so don’t even bother trying, you’ll just end up messing up your data which lands you in a whole world of problems when it comes time to do the write-up.

Patience, Grasshopper
Labs are tedious. Take your time and do them right otherwise you’ll end up with bad data at best or no data at worst. Patience is key.

Don’t Forget the Write-up
As if you could! Be prepared to spend a very long time writing your lab report. Formal scientific writing is a pain and it only gets worse in the higher level classes (if you thought first year was bad wait until you get slammed with a third year lab report).

A great rule to follow is to start lab reports as early as you can, they certainly are not meant to be left until last minute. Don’t forget to be as thorough as possible because that’s how you get the top marks.

There you have it, five solid tips to help you not just survive but excel at labs. Good luck!

If you take a quick glance around the internet you’ll find plenty of writers recommending young people skip university. You’ll hear examples of exceptional people who made it big, arguments against how much it costs, and often people claiming that they didn’t go and are doing alright themselves.

These are all good points but we have to disagree with the the idea that skipping university is a good thing. We think that the vast majority of you with your eyes set on higher education should attend. Here are a just a few reasons why…

University Grads Get Better Pay
The overall trend is that the higher your education level the higher your salary will be – and the differences between levels are staggering. We would never advocate money to be the most important factor in life but we would like to point out that a better paying job is often a better job which comes with superior working conditions and benefits.

You Will Have a Safe Place to Figure Yourself Out
As you transition from teenager to adult you’ll go through a plethora of changes. By attending university you surround yourself with individuals experiencing the exact same thing, forming a giant support network for this transitional time. Plus it’s much easier to change when you don’t have the responsibilities of being a “real person” to deal with.

Remember that Exceptions are Exceptions
The Zuckerbergs and Gates of the world are immensely rare. Yes, they dropped out of university to expand their companies but let’s be honest, they had good reason for doing so.

A university degree can both enhance your abilities while simultaneously giving you the accreditation and authority that comes with having studied something for years. Entrepreneurship is a great example to use here: if you want to start your own company that’s great, though at 17 you probably don’t know much about accounting, business strategy, or marketing. A business degree would prepare you in these aspects and you could even be starting companies while doing your degree. Plus having a degree in business will mean people will take you more seriously when you need to raise capital or build a team.

University is Fun
Okay not during exam time but being surrounded by thousands of intelligent people your age is a pretty big perk to life. Those bits about how university is the “best years of your life” and “you’ll meet friends you’ll take with you forever” are absolutely true.

It would be a shame to miss out on it.

Scattered across the internet are a plethora of resources available freely to university students. Here we’ve compiled some great websites and free programs. Check them out!

Great Websites
CollegeBlender.com – is a great place to read articles written specifically for university students. They’re a pretty comprehensive network and definitely worth checking out.

StudySuccessful.com – Stefan Knapen gives tips and tricks to help you study more successfully. He’s a friend of Starfoile so make sure you pay him a visit.

AverageCollegeGuy.com – Sure you’ve heard of CollegeHumor, but AverageCollegeGuy has a collection of utterly hilarious articles on university life. If Starfoile is about the academics you could say that ACG is about the lifestyle. Highly recommended.

Save Your Work – Forget those evil USB keys, SaveYourWork is an online file storage website which ensures you will never lose your work again. A free account gets you 1GB of space which is pretty awesome (Please note, Justin is a partial owner of SaveYourWork).

PointsInCase.com – Another utterly hilarious website that writes articles for university students.

Mint.com – Keep track of your finances with this absolutely amazing online system.

Free Programs
Open Office – The standard alternative to MS Office suite. Totally worth the $0 it will cost you.

GIMP – Gimp is a free Photoshop alternative and while it leaves much to be desired let us not forget that it is free.

AVG – Free virus scanner? Yes please.

Spybot – Zap that adware/spyware off your system.

Welcome to your online resource for doing well in university. Here you will find everything you need to know about how to score the top grades.

If this is your first time here you may find one of the following links helpful:

• I am a new student entering university for the first time
• I am a current university student who would like to get higher grades
• I am a parent who wants to ensure my university student has the resources available to do well in school

Please feel free to check our about page for more info on what we do, or simply browse around the site.

Enjoy.

Pretty much every university student ends up with group work at some part in their college careers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, a group can make an otherwise massive project drastically easier to finish. Often times you’ll end up with a great group and everything will go smoothly.

Unfortunately you’ll occasionally get stuck with a group that just can’t seem to make anything happen, which is a bad thing when you have a massive project deadline bearing down on you. Here is a list of survival strategies for when this occurs:

Become the Group Leader
One reason why groups often fall apart is because nobody takes charge. There is a reason why there are presidents, CEOs, and generals: Leadership works.

By standing up and saying, “We need to get cracking on this project and today we’re going to…,” you instantly set the tone for the meeting and establish things so that work will get done.

Delegate to your Group Members
Make sure each person has a specific task equal in size to what other members are assigned. A very important trick with delegating is finding out what people want to do/are good at and then sending them off to do exactly that. This way everyone plays to their strengths and the end result is a much better project which got done as painlessly as possible. Be sure at least one person is responsible for putting everything together and checking over other member’s work.

Hold Frequent Meetings
Frequent meetings help to hold group members accountable. Things work even better if you set a certain amount of work to be done before each meeting so that incremental process continues to be made. Besides, it’s difficult to slack off when you know other members are going to have their parts ready.

Don’t Hesitate to Fire Freeloaders
If you have a group member who is absolutely dead weight, a person who refuses to do any work, be sure to talk to your professor about firing them from the group. Why should people be entitled to the same marks you’re getting when they’re not doing any of the work?

It sucks when this has to happen but you’ll find most professors to be supportive. They know that it’s important everybody pulls their own weight. Occasionally you’ll be told to “just deal with it,” at which point the best trick is to assign them work knowing you’ll probably have to give it to someone else at last minute.

Make Sure Group Work is Done Well Before the Deadline
Rather than having people submit their work two hours before the project is due, have them submit it a few days early. This gives the people putting the project together plenty of time and if any part of the final package is inferior or missing it allows that situation to be remedied.

There are two notable parts to university success. The first is academic and obviously very important. If you’re wondering how to consistently score great grades then be sure to check out The Good Grades Guide.

The second part isn’t discussed as much but it’s nearly as important: A large part of your university success is determined by what you take away when you have completed your degree.

University isn’t just about that piece of paper but also the friendships and contacts you’ve formed, the memories you’ve made, the skills you’ve gained, and the amount you have grown as a person. When you think back to your university experience you don’t want to think, “Well, all I really got was a piece of paper.”

Take the time to get out, go for coffee, join groups, and get involved. Chase your passions and do your best to gain skills not just in the classroom, but outside as well.

Through it all never forget that balance is key. You can’t socialize all the time and conversely you can’t lock yourself in a room and study 24/7 without going absolutely insane. It is essential that you find the spot between doing well and having fun.

Besides, you can have fun and still slam out A’s consistently, just ask Justin.

The freshman fifteen is a blight experienced by many first year students. The influx of alcohol, cafeteria food, absence of high school sports, and lack of parents helping them moderate their diets can really…well, add fifteen or so pounds.

A person who can resist falling into this trap by eating a balanced diet while getting appropriate amounts of exercise will reap a plethora of rewards which will help them massively when it comes to their studies.

The Benefits of Eating a Balanced Diet:
We all know that when you eat better you feel better, though formally studies have shown that eating healthily has a significant impact on psychological concerns such as anxiety, depression, and even ADHD. Plus it’s really hard to study when you’re drinking two liters of pop a day from the cafeteria.

How Exercise Can Help Your Grades:
There have been a plethora of studies which show that exercise improves productivity (this is why so many corporations either have fitness centers on site or provide corporate memberships to gyms).

It’s also been well publicized that exercise reduces levels of stress and anxiety while boosting your mood and psychological well-being. Another study showed that people who exercised had a 21% increase in concentration on the days when they exercised, and 79% of these people reported better mental performance on these days. Sounds pretty handy come exam time.

So there you have it, eating balanced diet and hitting the gym can help the busy student in many ways – plus you won’t gain fifteen pounds. Get to it students!

If there is one thing we stress here at Starfoile it’s that once you know how the university system works and have developed the necessary skills and work habits the good grades tend to follow. Today we’re going to focus on skills, specifically the two that you absolutely, positively need to master in order to do well in university.

Just what are the two? They are…

Study Skills
Getting good at studying is a pre-requisite for doing well in university. Once you develop proper studying technique exams become far less stressful and much easier to prepare for.

Master study skills and it’ll go a long way when it comes to getting great grades

Essay Writing Skills
Most students will have to write an essay at some part of their degree and given that they often account for at least 25% of a class’s final mark they’re an important skill to have. Knowing how to write them properly can make all the difference to your GPA.

Learning these two skills is a must for doing well with your studies. That’s why we created The Good Grades Guide, to help busy students learn to study better and write amazing essays. If your skills could use a tune-up then be sure to pick yourself up a copy.