While some professors may have the best of intent, they aren’t always the easiest to understand or very good at fully conveying their lessons. Whether you are attending one of the best certified colleges in Miami or one of the Ivy League schools in the Northeast, there is a good chance that you will need help at some point.
For some students, going to a professor or TA for help is second nature, others struggle with asking for help. For those students who aren’t comfortable with asking professors for help, no need to stress. There are numerous free online learning resources that can help you better understand your coursework. A few of the most popular and helpful include:
No need to spend an arm and a leg on Rosetta Stone or a tutor. If you’re struggling in your Spanish, German, or Italian class, or really just about any other language course taught in college, there is a good chance that BBC Languages can help. The site offers several auditory and text bassed lessons over dozens of languages, and can provide you with an easy way to practice so you don’t jumble your words the next time your professor asks you to speak aloud in class.
If you need help with that Statistics assignment or don’t understand what your professor is getting at in Organic Chemistry, no worries. You don’t need to wait around for a study session or office hours either. The Khan Academy has you covered, and can help you with just about everything from advanced math to art history to physics in as short a time that it takes you to watch a 15 minute video. Most videos are also followed up with a quick quiz and lesson review so that you know you got your new found knowledge down.
If the Khan Academy isn’t providing you with the help you need, consider clicking over to Wikiversity. Wikiversity, like the K Academy, offers hundreds of lessons on a wide variety of subjects, but it has more peer-to-peer involvement to help those further struggling with concepts. If you don’t quite understand why Joyce wrote the way he did or why that math proof works the way it does, join a discussion or forum board about it, and another student or even a professor will get back to you with further explanation. It’s like having a Blackboard discussion without having to worry about dealing with all your other confused classmates.
When you don’t understand a lesson, it doesn’t mean you are an idiot or that your professor is clueless. It simply means that your learning style doesn’t match up with their teaching style, but that doesn’t mean that you should have to suffer or take a lower grade in a class. Simply go online and take advantage of one of the dozens of online learning resources so that you can be as successful as possible in college.