Jeffrey Kaplan | How to Make College Courses Easy and How *Not* to Practice "Self-Care" @profjeffreykaplan | Uploaded June 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This is the fourth in a series of videos intended for first-year college students, tentatively titled "How to Do Well in College." This video explains that the common question "Is this course easy or hard?" is misplaced. Really, what determines whether a college course is hard or easy is not so much the course itself, but rather *how* one goes about taking that course. I talk through several examples to illustrate this. And then I go on a little rant about the phrase "Self-Care" and how it can mislead students. Giving oneself a break from the reading or note-taking required for a course makes the course harder than it needs to be, and really amounts not to self-care, but to self-sabotage. Alternatively, if by "self-care" you merely mean treating yourself to guacamole on your burrito, then go for it.
This is the fourth in a series of videos intended for first-year college students, tentatively titled "How to Do Well in College." This video explains that the common question "Is this course easy or hard?" is misplaced. Really, what determines whether a college course is hard or easy is not so much the course itself, but rather *how* one goes about taking that course. I talk through several examples to illustrate this. And then I go on a little rant about the phrase "Self-Care" and how it can mislead students. Giving oneself a break from the reading or note-taking required for a course makes the course harder than it needs to be, and really amounts not to self-care, but to self-sabotage. Alternatively, if by "self-care" you merely mean treating yourself to guacamole on your burrito, then go for it.
