The practical change in first year is that you often have to organise more of the work between classes yourself. A timetable might show a lecture and a tutorial while leaving the reading, problem set and preparation for an assessment for you to schedule.
That does not mean teaching staff disappear, that every course ends in a large final, or that your high-school study habits were wrong. Keep the habits that work and identify the new tasks you need to practise. Start with your own courses rather than an assumed national first-year experience.
First, estimate the work your timetable does not show
Concordia's Student Success Centre suggests two hours of independent study for each class hour. Its example pairs 15 class hours with 30 hours outside class. This is a planning guideline, not proof that every 15-hour timetable was designed for exactly 45 hours of weekly work.
A useful first estimate includes reading, assignments, problem practice, preparation for labs and time to resolve difficulties. Track what these tasks actually take for a week or two, then adjust. Courses with substantial contact hours, including first-year engineering, may need a different balance.
For context, Laurier's 2023 NSSE snapshot reports 16.4 weekly class-preparation hours for its first-year respondents, compared with 17.4 in its Ontario comparison group. Those are dated self-reported averages from a different population, not a measure of your course requirements. Subtracting them from Concordia's example cannot establish a personal study deficit.
Try planning by output as well as time:
| Task | What you aim to produce | How you check it |
|---|---|---|
| Read a required article | Its main claim, evidence and one question | Explain the argument without copying the abstract |
| Prepare for a tutorial | An attempted problem or discussion point | Identify the step or interpretation you want to ask about |
| Review a lecture | A few questions covering the key ideas | Answer them, then correct omissions against the source |
| Work on an assignment | A defined section, calculation or draft | Compare it with the brief and marking criteria |
Add work, commuting, caring responsibilities, meals and rest before deciding whether the plan fits. If it does not, discuss course-load or support options with an adviser rather than assuming the only solution is to work later every night.
Your previous route matters, but does not predict every difficulty
Students arrive with different courses, assessments and amounts of post-secondary preparation. The examples below were checked on 11 October 2026.
- Ontario: Queen's general entry requirements include the OSSD and six 4U/4M courses, with English and program-specific prerequisites. Admission requirements are separate from the assessment practices you will meet after enrolment.
- Quebec: a CEGEP background can shorten the university route. Concordia lists three years and 90 credits for many programs after CEGEP, compared with four years and 120 credits for many high-school entrants. Engineering and several other programs are longer. Do not assume every DEC leads to the same degree length or course exemptions.
- Alberta: the normal diploma-exam weighting is 30% exam and 70% school-awarded work, but January 2026 exams were cancelled and affected students could receive school-awarded marks as their final marks. It would be inaccurate to assume every Alberta entrant has taken the same provincial exams.
- British Columbia: the graduation program combines course credits with provincial literacy and numeracy assessments. That does not tell you whether an individual student has already taken cumulative school, IB or AP exams.
- IB and AP: UBC's calendar lists transfer credit at HL 5 for IB Arts, HL 6 for IB Science and AP 4 in appropriate subjects; selected Standard Level IB courses can also qualify. Check the particular equivalency and your degree requirements before deciding which university courses to take.
Instead of predicting your weak point from your province, ask: have I written an extended argument, solved unfamiliar problems without a worked example, managed overlapping deadlines, and practised the exam formats this course uses? Choose one unfamiliar task to practise early.
Read the syllabus as a working guide
Save each course outline and the assessment briefs. Record the assessment weights, deadlines, permitted tools, attendance requirements, contacts, reading and relevant drop dates in one place. Check announcements for changes.
Toronto's assessment policy requires evaluation methods, weights and major-assessment timing to be disclosed by the faculty's last enrolment date. Its undergraduate provisions include assessment on more than one occasion and feedback on work worth at least 10% before withdrawal without academic penalty. The policy's usual 80% maximum for one item has faculty-defined exemptions; it is not an exception-free promise for every course.
UBC's syllabus policy normally requires the syllabus in the first week. It includes learning outcomes, assessment methods and weights, late-work rules, support information and a statement about generative AI in submitted work. University regulations take precedence if the syllabus conflicts with them.
A course may also provide rubrics, worked solutions and instructions outside the syllabus. Read them together. Learning outcomes identify intended knowledge and skills; they are not a prediction of the exact final-exam questions.
Make the assessment information usable
For a fictional course, your record could be:
| Assessment | Weight | Preparation needed | Question to resolve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly problems | 15% | Attempt before tutorial | Is collaboration allowed, and how is it acknowledged? |
| Midterm | 25% | Practise the listed topics and question formats | Which calculator is permitted? |
| Essay | 20% | Reading, argument plan and draft | Which referencing style applies? |
| Final | 40% | Confirm coverage and practise timed answers | Is there a separate pass requirement? |
Replace these entries with your actual course details. Do not assume a good assignment average cancels a separate requirement to pass the final.
Use classes, tutorials and office hours for different tasks
A lecture may introduce concepts, demonstrate a method or develop an argument. Note the reasoning and examples you need to reconstruct later, alongside anything you did not understand. If slides are available, there is little value in copying every heading while missing the explanation.
Tutorials and labs vary. They may be led by a teaching assistant or another instructor, and may involve discussion, problem-solving or practical work. Prepare whatever the course asks for and bring a question. Our tutorial and lab notes guide explains how to record decisions, methods and observations without treating every session as a lecture.
Office hours are an opportunity to discuss the course. Check whether they are drop-in, booked or online. You do not need to arrive with a polished question or wait until you have failed. A useful starting point is: “I tried this approach because of this passage, but it gives a different result. Where does the reasoning stop working?”
If you cannot attend the scheduled hours, ask about another route. For wider issues,such as changing courses, progression or ongoing access barriers,contact advising or accessibility services rather than expecting the course instructor to resolve every administrative question.
Read with a purpose and keep the source
Distinguish required preparation from recommended or optional reading. Some courses centre on a textbook; others use articles, primary sources or mixed materials. Do not assume the reading list is impossible or unnecessary to finish.
Before reading, identify the task: understanding a concept, preparing a discussion or finding evidence for an assignment. After a section, write a brief explanation and note any question that remains. Keep page or section references, and mark copied wording as a quotation immediately.
If you fall behind, ask which material is essential for the next class and assessment. Continue with the current work while scheduling manageable catch-up tasks. Dropping all required reading in favour of flashcards can leave you memorising terms without understanding their use.
Check academic-integrity rules for each task
Use the course's rules for collaboration, source attribution and technology. At Toronto, using generative AI on marked work where the instructor has prohibited it is treated as an unauthorized aid. Permission on a different course is not permission here.
Ask about a specific proposed use if the instructions are unclear: brainstorming, feedback, translation and generating an answer are different activities. Also check whether you may upload course materials or other people's contributions to an external tool.
Cite sources according to the assigned style, including paraphrased ideas where attribution is required. Being able to explain a sentence does not make uncited borrowed work your own. For the difference between similarity reports and evidence of misconduct, see Turnitin at Canadian universities.
Practise before the final study days
Use a small practice task to find out whether you understand a topic: explain it without notes, solve a problem, compare two arguments or plan an answer. Then check the attempt and repair the specific gap. Reading an explanation again can help when you have not understood it; retrieval practice is useful for testing and strengthening what you have learned.
Return to important questions after a gap and adapt the timing to what you can still do. No fixed day-week-month schedule replaces adequate practice or guarantees retention.
Past papers can help you recognise formats, but availability and coverage vary. Toronto's collections cover selected departments and campuses, normally the three most recent years, with UTORid access. Queen's ExamBank covers ten years of final papers with exclusions such as confidential exams and midterms. Ask for an approved sample task if no past paper is available.
Before using an old paper, compare it with the current syllabus and permitted aids. It is practice material, not evidence that the same questions will return. Our Canadian exams guide covers assessment rules and current calendar examples.
Review the plan before a deadline forces a decision
Once a week, check upcoming tasks and the feedback already returned. Choose the next concrete action for each course, and identify any question that requires help. Do this even if the first marks look good: a method that worked for a short quiz may not prepare you for a longer problem or essay.
If results or workload are worrying, contact an adviser early. Check the difference between course-change, withdrawal, refund and academic-penalty deadlines. They need not be the same date, and financial aid or immigration conditions may require additional advice before a change.
UBC's academic-standing policy makes faculty rules central to progression and possible registration restrictions. There is no single Canadian probation threshold. Our guides to academic probation and credit/no credit explain the questions to ask, including limits on using a pass/fail option.
A difficult start is information you can act on. It does not establish that you lack the ability to study, or that one particular habit explains every problem.
Where Notibo fits
If keeping a usable record is a barrier, Notibo can turn permitted recordings and supported documents into notes and revision material. Recording-generated flashcards and spaced repetition are Pro features. Check the output against the source, especially terminology, calculations and the distinction between a lecturer's claim and a student's question.
Permission to record does not automatically include permission to upload or use AI. Follow your course's rules and recording guidance. Successful processing deletes the uploaded audio, and generated flashcards cannot currently be edited individually, so plan how you will verify and correct your study material.
Try Notibo with a small piece of allowed course material. The 14-day Pro trial includes 240 recording minutes, with no card required. The ongoing Free plan includes 30 recording minutes and five documents a month. Use the result to attempt a question and check understanding, rather than measuring progress by how many notes you have collected.