Cultivating success

Miranda Witt wasn't a successful high school student. She dropped out.

College just wasn't talked about in her household.

"I didn't know high school was preparing you for college," she said.

Now 22 and a single mother, she's a standout at Modesto Junior College, with plans to transfer to a four-year school.

How does a student go from dropout to a 3.8GPA?

"The main thing is not procrastinating," Witt said. "And knowing what to study."

For most people, the average college coursework is much heavier than in a high school class. For some, there's more work. For others, the work is simply harder.

Students have to try every method of studying and working to find what's most effective for them.

For example, a college syllabus, or course outline, can look daunting.

But Witt said it offers an advantage because it gives students a list of what to study ahead of time.

Jason Castillo, 18, of Clovis, a biology major at the University of California at Merced, said students have to figure out what teachers are trying to get them to learn, and set goals.

"If you have good focus and work hard, you can reach those goals," said Castillo, who wants a career in medicine.

Critical-thinking skills required

MiKell Brough-Stevenson, 24, of Fresno, always has been a high achiever. In high school, she took Advanced Placement courses and was on the college track.

She knew the rigors of the college-prep classes, but said one big difference is how much more often college students are asked to think critically.

"To succeed in college, you have to be willing to question your own ideas," Brough-Stevenson said. "… If you're inflexible, college is going to break you."

Now at UC Merced, she uses many of the strategies she brought with her from high school in Fresno, and has adapted them to the college level.

For example, she used to try to color-code her notes as she took them. She found out that took too much time, she said. Now, when she goes over her notes the evening after a lecture, she uses different colors of highlighters to organize the main points.

"It makes you have to think about what's important and what's not," she said. Interacting that way with notes and other reading materials, she said, means she reinforces the lectures and gets time to make sure she understands the point of the instructor's lecture.

Working with other students in study groups, she said, helps her stay motivated and helps keep her from procrastinating, lets her get other perspectives on a topic and helps her better understand the material by reinterpreting it.

Castillo said groups don't really work for him.

"If you're not with someone who has done as much work as you or more, you're not really improving your skills," he said.

Witt said she finds discussion helpful.

"The best is when I talk about the lecture. I spout out everything I know, and pretty soon I've learned it," she said.

Brough-Stevenson said there's another facet to being successful in college, and that's getting involved in extracurricular activities.

"It connects me to the place," she said. "I have pride in my school and in what I'm doing."

Witt also offered a hint for students who haven't done well but want to: Build your confidence.

"I had never really applied myself to anything," she said. But then she took a course for would-be certified nurses' aides, and she earned the highest score in her class, she said.

"I thought 'Wow. I can do this,'" she said. "Then I saw that it was worth getting the grades."

Bee staff writer Lorena Anderson can be reached at 667-1227 or landerson@modbee.com.