It's Just Like Joining a Health Club
Think of your school as a health club and the tuition you pay as a membership to that club. When you join a health club, you know that paying the dues isn't in and of itself going to do anything for you except reduce the balance of your bank account. In order to enjoy the benefits of the health club, you need to actually go to the health club on a regular basis. Once at the club, you then need to actually participate in the activities and make appropriate use of the facilities. Doing this faithfully will almost always produce the desired results.
So let's extend this analogy a little. Think of the courses you are enrolled in as aerobics classes that meet only two or three times each week. "Attending" class will certainly help you make progress toward your goals (i.e. learning the course material and obtaining a degree). And if you had enough time, this might actually be enough. However, we have only a limited amount of time -- 15 weeks in a long term and 5 weeks in a summer term. Therefore, coming to class translates to only 37.5 hours of actual time spent on each subject. This is unlikely to be sufficient, unless you are already very familiar with the course material. The assumption is that if you already knew the course material, you would not be enrolled in the course.
So, just like in a health club, you also need to make use of the other facilities made available to you when you pay your tuition. Use the computer labs, the library, and other campus resources. As a rule of thumb, you should spend at least two hours "studying" outside of class for every hour spent in class. For some courses, you may need to increase this figure. So, if you're enrolled in 15 semester hours, you spend 12.5 hours each week in class and an additional 25 studying -- you have a full-time job! And you need to do this every week. When you go to a health club, you don't wait until the day before your membership expires to decide to lose 20 pounds -- it just doesn't work..
Let's take a closer look at two important words from the paragraphs above: attending and studying. When you attend class, you need to be there, mind, body, and spirit. Get to class on time, stay for the entire class, pay attention to what's going on, participate in class discussions and exercises, and ask questions. You wouldn't expect to benefit from an aerobics class if you slept through it or sat on the sidelines reading the newspaper.
Finally, studying does not mean carrying your textbook around in your backpack or complaining about the course. It means, among other things, reading and understanding the textbook and other materials, accurately completing assignments, reviewing class notes, and preparing a list of questions to ask during the next class meeting. There are abundant resources available to assist you with developing good study skills -- take advantage of them!
If you make more than just a financial commitment to college, you will benefit from each and every course you take.