I tend to do homework at random hours of the day and night using lots of different resources for homework help in college. Even though many of my professors only grade for completion and not accuracy, I’ve had other classes where homework and assignments were worth 60 percent of my grade and demanded my full attention to detail. Since I have an unpredictable chronic illness and low vision though, I have come up with many different creative ways to get homework help without leaving the comfort of my desk (or, on some days, my bed) and to study a topic thoroughly so I can be prepared for projects or exams. Here are my favorite ways I get online homework help in college as a data science major.
Use online tutoring services
One of the main resources that helped me with my physics and statistics classes is Brainfuse, a free online tutoring service from the public library. While Brainfuse is not 24/7, I can access it when I need to get help on my homework or check some formulas before I import them into a Python program. I like this better than traditional in-person tutoring because I don’t have to leave my dorm room and I can easily use any assistive technology I need to access my assignments. In addition, I’ve had classes where the professor did not allow students to have tutors that had connections to the college, so we would have to seek outside help.
Related links
- Brainfuse Online Tutoring Review
- College Scheduling Hacks For Students With Chronic Illness
- Why You Should Have A Tutor From Your School (written for K-12)
Read digital resources from my college library
Once upon a time, I got so lost in my college library during freshman year that police had to come find me and help me find my way out of the building. After that incident, I began to embrace digital library resources such as journal subscriptions, databases, digital copies of books, and more. Having the ability to search through the library website has been a tremendous help for many of my classes, especially for searching through digital textbooks to find explanations of different concepts.
Related links
Look up cheat sheets or crash courses for a particular topic
If you asked me how my R programming class was going last semester, I probably said something about how confused I was over the language or just sighed in frustration. This all changed when I discovered several different “cheat sheets” and crash courses in R programming that laid out the information in a clear and organized way, much clearer than how my professor had previously explained the topic. Some cheat sheets may be in the form of images without alt text, so I ask someone to read it to me so I can copy it down in an accessible file format if needed.
Related links
- Common File Types For Vision Impairment and Print Disabilities
- How To Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the Visually Impaired
Find papers my professors wrote
I’m fortunate to have lots of professors in college who have contributed lots to their respective fields, but there have definitely been times I wondered what the heck they were talking about as they explained a particular topic. One of my friends and I had the idea to search our professor’s name and the topic name online, and we found a detailed paper they had written about the exact topic we were confused about. Another technique that helped was looking at papers from others that cited our professor’s paper, since they were often able to explain the topic in a slightly simpler way.
Run a web search for “site:edu”
Instead of wasting my time by scrolling through random websites that might give me a virus, I like to run a search from websites with .edu as the domain, since those are run by educational institutions and often are compliant with web accessibility guidelines. This is especially beneficial when studying for a test, as professors from other universities post practice tests, or I can find old tests from my university that have been officially released by professors.
Search through common hashtags or topics for my field on social media
I am a huge fan of using Twitter and Pinterest to find educational resources, and have found that searching hashtags for topics or programming languages has helped me find lots of amateur and professional tutorials and resources in small, easy to understand posts. This is also how I have found many “cheat sheets” and learned not to detest the R programming language. I’ve also found links to apps that I can use to get help with programming, my favorite being SoloLearn.
Related links
Read the textbook with Amazon Alexa
Reading a textbook can be exhausting for my eyes. Since I purchase my textbooks on Amazon Kindle, many of my textbooks can be read out loud with my Amazon Alexa so that I can be more relaxed and listen to the topic at hand. I don’t recommend doing this in bed though, as I discovered my Java textbook could put me to sleep!
Related link
Final thoughts
Even when I can’t attend office hours or traditional classes, I’m grateful to be in a field of study where there is virtually unlimited information I can use on the internet to support my academic goals. I highly recommend adding some of these homework help methods to your college study routine, as it will help with information retention and lead to better understandings of important topics for the future!
