Luckily morning classes are fairly rare…

Now that your sim is in the new and exciting world of Higher Education, it is time to attend class, study hard and make sure to graduate with the highest grade. After all, your future income depends on your success! Luckily, in The Sims 3, you have all the time in the world, or very nearly so. Your sim does not age while in university, and if you studied diligently in your youth and then picked the lightest course load, you should be able to breeze through the semester.

Each semester is one week, or nearly so. You arrive on Sunday, and go home late on Saturday. However, the study progress bar is only active from your first class on Monday to after your final exam on Friday (typically at noon). This is the time range in which it makes sense to study.

When you arrive at Uni, your first day will be spent getting settled and going to orientation. Your academic progress bar will not be visible until your first class, on the second day. Classes usually begin at noon, but some classes begin at 8 and some at 16 (4 PM). If you have taken on the challenge of a double course load, classes will not collide, but there won’t be much time to recharge between them. Pretty much run from one to the other. (This is where having bought the MultiTab gadget comes in handy, as starting to listen to a Tabcast gives an instant joy boost. Craziness drink from the Mixology skill (Late Night expansion) will also keep you from crashing your fun bar by working hard for two lectures in a row.)

Now, assuming you started with a normal course load, you should be fine no matter what. Since last we spoke, I have sent an almost completely unskilled Sim to Uni, and he still pretty much breezed through it. The academic bar starts at half full, and sinks very slowly as the hours pass and your sim begins to forget. But even listening normally during lectures will be enough for a passing grade and then some. If you actually read in a textbook occasionally, so much the better. You can also read on your smartphone for a quick boost. Each major also has its own special skill object (like a sketchbook for art) which you get for free when you arrive, together with textbooks. I don’t think even Norway coddles its students that much!

Perhaps the best way to increase your grades is to improve the relevant skills. When you do the aptitude test, you can see which skills belong to which major. Some are obvious, like painting and guitar for Art. Some not so much, like Mixology for Business. But raising your skills will now automatically improve your grades, and pretty fast too. In fact, you may want to keep your sim in check if they love raising their skills, so you don’t use up all this skilling in one semester. If you know your sim is crazy about a skill, this is one of the few times it might be an idea to take a double course load, especially if this is a skill that you can raise by having fun, like painting and guitar.

My recommended study activities, in order:
-Classes. You are only allowed to skip one, and not the final exam on Friday.
-Skilling, because you will need those skills in your job.
-The dedicated skill object. Even if your skill is maxed, using this will still raise your grades.
-Textbooks or smartphone.
-Study groups, a bit of a hassle for the player to organize.

Perhaps it is just because I am new to the expansion, but I found double course load to be the upper limit. You can pile on even more courses, but that just sounds foolhardy. After all, you don’t age while studying, so you can safely return to learn more another week. And there are many other things to do on campus. More about that next time, hopefully!