How do you survive a 3-hour college class?

If you have a class that lasts three hours at a stretch, I hope you have a good instructor who breaks the class into different parts, topics, and activities to keep you actively engaged.

You get used to 3-hour classes very quickly. Most 3-hour classes are broken into 1 hour, 3 times a week or 1 1/2 hours, 2 times a week.

If you have a class that lasts three hours at a stretch, I hope you have a good instructor who breaks the class into different parts, topics, and activities to keep you actively engaged. If the class is online, you may not have to sit through that long. You can break up a recorded class on your own.

Here is my best advice for keeping engaged when a lecture is longer than your attention span:

  1. Take notes. Try to find the teacher’s main ideas and mark them. Write down important words, draw diagrams, keeping engaged on paper will help you learn.
  2. Ask (or answer) questions. Turn the class around so that you are speaking every so often. That shifts the gears on your energy and helps revive you.
  3. Stretch if you need to. Pull your backbone straight up. Push your shoulders back. Move your head from side to side or back and forth. Stretch your legs as long as you can make them. Wake your muscles up.
  4. Candy. A little jolt of sugar sometimes helps.
  5. Look out the window (or at a distance). This helps wake up your eyes and gives them some exercise.
  6. In most classes, you can leave quietly for a couple of minutes. Get yourself out of the classroom to walk around a bit, just come back in quietly as well.