Student Survival Guide

Whether returning to school or signing up for the first time a survival guide is essential. This survival guide should be used alongside each class syllabus and referred to as often as necessary.

Using Axia’s Educational Resources

An excellent source of information is the Axia Online Library. After logging in, place the pointer over My Learning Resources at the top of the page and select Tools & Tutorials. Click Library and the Welcome to the University Library page will load. Clicking the Ask a Librarian will provide a service to receive specific information that may be problematic in researching. Choose one of the numerous databases to search for a specific topic. This is an outstanding source to find research on a topic. There is even a tutorial on using the online library, which is extremely helpful for first time users.

When locating key information on a specific topic; first, choose an appropriate database to search. Type in a few key words or limit search by using “and,” “not,” and “or.” It is also possible to limit the search to peer-reviewed articles or documents with images. Clicking on search will bring up the articles matching the selected search. This is a fantastic search source.

Sometimes is will be necessary to download files to use on a personal computer or even a portable device. An example is downloading the syllabus for a course; which is recommended, since this is something that will be referenced daily in class. When clicking on a link the File Download pop-up appears. Click save, then choose a �home’ for it on the computer or zip drive currently in use.

Upholding Academic Honesty

Axia College of University of Phoenix takes academic honesty seriously. The policy states the following:

Students must acknowledge references from original works, avoid, plagiarism, and use writing and formatting styles generally accepted as sound academic writing. (Axia College of University of Phoenix. (2007). Skills for Learning in an Information Age Course Syllabus, p. 9)

According to the University of Phoenix Catalog for the online campus (2007) plagiarism is a violation of school policies and subject for the student to be withdrawn from school. This is not something that any student would want to go through – simply put: do not plagiarize.

Avoiding plagiarism can be a tricky task. Keep in mind, if the information is not in your own words, quote it; if the information is not common knowledge to everyone, quote it. Axia provides another fantastic service in the Centers for Writing Excellence called Plagiarism Checker. Upload a document and in a short time information will be provided to the user stating a percentage of the paper that may be plagiarized and the source. Uploading essays, reports, or graded papers should become habit.

Setting and Achieving Goals

Making a choice to start college or return to the classroom may be something that is valued, or a goal. Planning long-term goals can be of huge importance to a college student. Those goals can mean grand achievement or a lifetime dream. They can be broken down into short-term goals; which are attainable in a short time and work toward that �big picture’ (Carter, Bishop, & Kravits, 2007). As those short-term goals are completed there is a sense of accomplishment; one-step closer to achieving the main goal. The road to achievement will not always be smooth; there will be bumps, hills, mountain, and maybe even brick walls. Randy Pausch made an excellent realization of hitting those brick walls. He said:

Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. They will not stop the people who want it badly enough, but they will stop the others who do not (Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, 2007).

Use those obstacles as stepping-stones to the next level – to obtain that long-term goal.

Let’s relate goals to the class work in Axia. Set every assignment as a long-term goal and outline the steps that will be needed to complete that assignment. Now that assignment does not look so bad. This set-up will help will just about every assignment or project.

Managing Time Wisely

No one ever said juggling work, school, and personal life would be easy! The best advice is to use a planner or calendar and use it – check it daily. Set aside a time and place just for school work, make this a quite place without interruptions.