If there is one thing that can put a damper on a new college student’s excitement about their new environment, it is the first day of an introductory class. It cannot be proven, but it certainly seems like every introductory class is held in that boring, gray building on the other end of campus. The class usually has about 200 students, is located in a lecture hall with stadium seating that makes it downright impossible to hear your professor who, by the way, talks in a monotone, and if you are really unlucky, the air-conditioning won’t work either.

如果说有什么能给大学新生初来乍到的激动心情浇盆冷水，那一定是入门课程的第一天。虽然无法考证，但似乎每堂入门课都确实是在校园边缘的一桩阴森、灰暗的教学楼里开始的。这样的课堂一般有200+的学生，开在一个装着体育馆观众席座椅的大讲堂里，你根本没法听见教授死气沉沉的的讲话。要是更不幸一点，连空调都不好使。

Okay so we are exaggerating its awfulness only slightly but the point remains, introductory classes can be brutal for freshmen. In some instances, the class can be so boring and large that it will ruin a student’s experience with a certain subject. It happened to us with introductory classes in Biology and European History when we were in college, and it’s possible that it could happen to you. As much as we would like to help every college freshman with this problem, we are a psychology site, with an interest in making sure that an introductory psychology class doesn’t turn off an interested student from the subject.

好吧我们只是稍稍夸张了一点，但重点还是重点：入门课程对新生来说很残酷的！有时候，课会大而无聊到毁了学生对整个学科的兴趣。在我们上大学时，在生物和欧洲历史课上就发生了这样的情况，而你们也可能会和我们有同样的遭遇。我们想帮所有新生解决这个问题，但我们是个心理学网站，当然要先确保心理学入门课没有逼走一个对这个学科感兴趣的学生啦。

Here are a few tips to surviving your introductory psychology class from a group of people with a lot of experience in barely surviving their freshmen lectures. Enjoy!

有几条小贴士送给你们。我们的新生入门课经历，也都是充满了血泪的经验教训啊！

Get to know your teacher

认识你的老师

This is particularly important if you attend a large state school and your Introduction to Psychology class has 400 students, but it is a useful suggestion no matter how many fellow students are in your class. Let’s face it, even if your teacher was the world’s most selfless instructor who wanted nothing more than to make sure each and every student learns a lot, that professor still doesn’t have enough time in the world to care about each student’s individual success.

如果你就读于大型州立学校并且心理学入门有四百个学生，这尤其重要；但无论课堂上有多少人，这条建议都多少有用。面对现实吧，即使你的教授是世界上最无私的人，毕生所求就是让每个学生学有所成，他也是没有足够时间去关心每个学生个人的成功的。

Chances are they teach other classes and have research conduct. Also, chances are the introductory class you are enrolled in is the class that teacher invests the least amount of time in. So since the teacher isn’t going to make an effort, the onus is on you to get the most out of the class.

可能他们还有别的课要教，别的研究要做；也可能你上的这个入门课是老师投入精力最少的。所以既然老师不会花大力气，那尽可能多地从课堂里得到东西就是你的责任了。

Talk to your professor after class, go to see him during office hours even if you don’t have a lot of questions, sit close to the front of class, ask insightful questions. These are just a few ways to get to know your professor. Once you get to know your professor, class will likely be less boring and more worthwhile. Not only will you learn more, but you will also be more engaged. Plus, there is always the chance you make a lasting impression and that professor helps open some doors to the psychology careers you have always wanted.

课后和教授交谈，办公时间即使没太多问题也去找他，课上坐在前排，问有见地的问题。这只是认识教授的几种方式。一旦和教授认识了，课就有趣且值得很多了。你不仅会学得更多，也会更投入。并且，可能你给教授留下了很深的印象，从而开启了你梦寐以求的心理学事业的大门也说不定。

Don’t just sit there and take notes

别只坐着记笔记

The default use of class time for every first-time college student is note-taking. When you aren’t sure what the best way to learn is, you should just take notes, or at least that’s what common sense suggests. We respectfully argue that, in this instance, common sense doesn’t know what it’s talking about, because it has never been stuck copying down notes from a PowerPoint presentation for six hours.

每个大一新生都会把课堂时间默认用来记笔记。当你不知道怎样学最好的时候，你应该记笔记，这至少是常识性建议。但我们毫不冒犯地说一句，在这种情况下尝试并不适用，因为它总是逃不出抄个六小时PPT的范畴。

Now before you go burning all of your notebooks and telling your teachers that a crazy guy on the Internet told you to do it, we aren’t advocating not taking notes at all, we are only trying to say that if the class is 50 minutes long, not all of it should be spent copying down what the professor is saying. Note-taking is important and it is going to help you pass whatever class you are enrolled it — introductory or otherwise. But are you really learning or retaining any information if all you are doing is copying down notes? We argue that no, you aren’t really learning.

在你烧掉笔记并告诉教授这是网上那个疯子叫你这么做之前，我们并不提倡完全不记笔记，只是告诉你50分钟的课堂并不是每一秒都应该用在记录教授所说的话上。笔记很重要，并且能帮你通过考试；但当你所做的仅仅是抄笔记时，你真的在学习吗？你真的有记住一点点知识吗？我们觉得不尽然。

Now hopefully your professor is worthwhile and will try to incorporate some other aspects of class that don’t involve just listening to him lecture you about human behavior. But most introductory classes are designed to be lectures, so it’s up to you to make the subject interesting and still learn at the same time.

运气好的话，你的教师很懂教学，会囊括一些课堂的其他方面，而不只是让你听他滔滔不绝人类行为云云。但大多数入门课都被设计成讲座，所以把这门课变得有趣同时依然能学到东西就看你的本事了。

Follow along in the book. Or collaborate with a friend so that you can listen while he takes notes and then the next class you switch. Ask questions. If your professor allows laptops, use them to look up interesting news articles on the subjects. It doesn’t matter how you choose to liven up the classroom, just make sure you make cater your learning to what keeps you interested.

跟着书的内容走，或者和一个朋友合作，每次课一人听课一人记笔记。问问题。如果你的教授课上允许带电脑，就用它们查找这个主题相关的有意思的新文章。无所谓你怎样使课堂不那么无聊，只要确保迎合自己的学习兴趣就好。

Make fast friends with someone in class

快速和同班人交朋友

When we say friends, we aren’t talking about the type of people you hang out with on the weekends and the type of people you go to the movies with, although it certainly would be cool if they became that sort of friend. The type of friends we are talking about are the type of people you study with, the people you coordinate note-taking with, the people you complain about your boring teacher with, and the people you sit next to in class.

这里的“朋友”，并不是指和你周末出去玩，一起去看电影的那种朋友（当然如果最终发展成那类朋友也是很棒的），而是一起学习，交换笔记，互相抱怨教授，课上坐你邻座的“学友”。

Finding a friend in your class will undoubtedly help make the class easier to deal with. Not only will it help to have someone else to study with and learn from when you missed something in class, but it is always fun to have someone who doesn’t mind listening to you moan about how miserable your introduction to psychology class is. Plus, psychology is not an easy subject to understand, so if you can find a friend, maybe the two of you will be able to figure out the more complex topics on your own.

在班上找个“学友”毫无疑问会使这门课轻松很多：这不仅因为即使你课上漏听课后也有人可以和你一起学习补足，还因为有个人能倾听你抱怨悲惨的心理入门课，这本身就是件有趣的事。而且，心理学并不是个易懂的学科，所以如果你有个伙伴，你们两个可能独立解决更复杂的问题。

Get involved in psychology-related activities and groups on campus

参加心理学相关的活动组织

We are writing this article for students who actually want to survive introductory psychology courses, so we are assuming that if you are reading this, you are interested enough in psychology to pursue the subject further after the class is over. If that is the case, then there is nothing more important that pursuing your passion outside of the classroom as well.

我们写这篇文章，是给那些真的想搞定心理学入门的学生看的；我们假设如果你在读此文，那你对心理学的兴趣足够大到让你在课后，也能继续对相关主题的深入思考。如果是这样，那没什么比在课外延伸这一学术热情更重要的了。

It may not seem like there is enough time to juggle classes, homework, social responsibilities and academic clubs, but trust us, you will have plenty of time to drink cheap beer and flirt with members of the opposite sex. The kind of involvement that will help you jump-start a career comes from joining the psychology club, or helping professors with their research, or maybe even looking for an internship or job while you are working on school stuff as well.

你可能没有足够的经历纠结于课堂、作业、社会责任和学术俱乐部，但相信我们，你一定有足够的时间喝廉价啤酒、和异性调情。参加心理学俱乐部，参与帮助教授的研究，或者找一份相关的实习和工作是能够真正帮助你开启一项事业的。

This will not only help reaffirm the fact that psychology as a subject is not defined by the introductory classes, and it also may make the subject material in the class more interesting. If you are applying principles you learned in class to work you are doing outside of class, you can’t help but become more invested and excited about what you are learning. This will force you to pay more attention in class as well and you may even feel good about knowing the answer to class questions that no other person knows because they aren’t involved like you are.

这不仅能让你认识到心理学不只是入门课中的死板定义，还会使课上的教材学起来更有趣。如果在课堂外能学以致用，你会情不自禁地对所学投入更多精力。这会迫使你更加全神贯注的听课；不仅如此，当别人因为不像你对这门学科如此投入而不知道课堂问题的答案，而你对答案成竹在胸时，相信我，这种感觉会更棒的。

Translated by 吴聆雪

From careersinpsychology.org

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