Academic Skills Building

Academic Study Skills & Perspectives for Adult Learners

If you’ve spent a lot of time in a classroom, you probably have developed processes, routines, and habits that have gotten you where you are today. Those things likely have served you well, but that doesn’t mean life couldn’t be better. Maybe you can get the A grade, but it’s at the expense of sleepless…
Advanced Reading Skills in Humanities and Liberal Arts Courses

You know how to read, now learn how to read meaningfully. In this study skills webinar, you will learn and understand the skills to read quickly and efficiently, as well as how to read between the lines to better understand what’s on the page. You will learn what annotating is, why it can be complicated,…
Applied Design Thinking for Scientists and Engineers – Part One

Design thinking is widely considered to be an essential skill for 21st century leaders and innovative thinkers. An important aspect of design thinking is that there is rarely a single correct answer to a complex problem. It is an iterative, interdisciplinary and collaborative process toward crafting acceptable solutions. This webinar, first in a two-part series,…
Applied Design Thinking for Scientists and Engineers – Part Two

Design thinking is widely considered to be an essential skill for 21st century leaders and innovative thinkers. An important aspect of design thinking is that there is rarely a single correct answer to a complex problem. It is an iterative, interdisciplinary and collaborative process toward crafting acceptable solutions. This webinar, following on from Part 1, is…
Approaching Quantitative Courses Strategically

Learn to tackle your quantitative courses with confidence and efficiency. In this valuable webinar led by Kate Penner, a seasoned STEM Academic Coach at the Academic Resource Center (ARC), you will learn strategies and techniques for tackling quantitative courses with confidence and efficiency. Whether you’re facing challenges in mathematics, statistics, or any other quantitative field,…
Calculus: An Introduction

Explore calculus on your own schedule with this webinar, led by Alberto Naveira. Alberto covers key concepts like limits, derivatives, and integrals in a clear and accessible manner. This webinar is your gateway to mastering calculus at your own pace. Watch now to enhance your understanding of this fundamental branch of mathematics. Presented by Alberto…
Effective and Efficient Reading

With all the reading that gets assigned at Harvard, many students worry that they read too slowly or forget what they’ve read too quickly. Luckily, there are strategies you can learn that will make you a more efficient and effective reader! In this workshop, we will discuss how to develop a productive reading mindset, how…
Effective Notetaking Strategies

Can good notetaking skills help me do better in my course(s)? How can I take better notes? Is there a strategy for that? If you find yourself asking any of these questions, this webinar will be a good place to start to learn more. Join us as Paul Harwell, former Assistant Director of our Accessibility Services…
Gaining Grammar Confidence

Effective communication greatly benefits from a confident command of grammar. The audience who reads our writing often forms a first impression of us by our use of grammar, punctuation and language: write a sentence fragment, misplace an adverb, or wield apostrophes and commas incorrectly, and readers may question our judgment or care. In this webinar,…
How to Have a Great First Semester

If it’s been a while since you’ve taken a course — or if you’re brand new to college-level classes — you might be a tad nervous about your first Harvard Extension School course. How should I approach an instructor if I have questions? How am I going to juggle my readings and my assignments with…
How to Read a Business Case

Students new to the case method often find reading cases to be frustrating and surprisingly time-consuming. This session is designed to help you understand the purpose of cases and why you approach them differently than other academic materials, such as textbooks and articles. A reading method tailored to cases is shared and put to practice. This session is presented…
How to Read an Academic Article in 15 minutes

This webinar provides strategies for reading academic articles quickly and extracting the information you need from them effectively. We offer tips on efficient note-taking (including a helpful template) so that you remember what you’ve read long after you put the article down. When you leave this workshop, you will be able to identify the major…
It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint: Academic Pacing

As you embark on a new semester at Harvard Extension School, it can be difficult to know how much to take on. There are so many exciting opportunities. What’s the right amount of time to devote to classes? How do I ensure I make time for studying while balancing a job, or family, or childcare…
Note-Taking and Its Applications

Taking notes might seem like a pretty straightforward skill, but college classes can pose challenges to good note-taking that weren’t present in high school. Should you try to write everything the professor says? Should you watch lecture multiple times to get it all down? Should you write them by hand or on the computer? Learn…
Research and Writing Skills for Academic Papers

In this webinar, you will learn approaches to conceptualize, organize, and draft your literature review as well as strategies to conduct a literature search effectively and efficiently. Students will gain an introduction to the steps in the process of conducting research, from developing the research topic to finding relevant literature to managing the writing. Four…
Statistics: An Introduction

Statistics are shared daily and used to support all kinds of hypotheses. This means it is crucial to understand and critically evaluate statistics. This introduction will focus on what statistics are and some essential statistical methods. Why might you want to learn statistics and in which careers are statistics necessary? We will also touch on some…
The Power of Habit in Academic Learning

To do well academically, students need to repeatedly succeed in specific activities over time (such as studying, practicing, etc.) and in maintaining good general habits (such as sleep, exercise, etc). The students who know how to harness the body and mind’s innate proclivity to building habits are able to be more successful with less stress….