Many courses take the form of optional lectures, compulsory tutorials and a series of seminars, practicals and group work, topped off with hefty amounts of independent reading, research and essay writing. Lectures are perhaps the most awesome form of communication known to humankind. The main problems with lectures are that firstly, there are too many lecturers who fail to make their lectures informative, structured and entertaining, and secondly, there are too many students who try to write down everything and end up learning nothing. The key to learning through lectures is to view the process as a briefing, or an introduction to a topic. Informal discussions on the topic, with other students over coffee, or even in a relevant seminar, can help clarify the debates in your mind and add different points of view.
Tutorials can be even more intimidating.
Whether one to one or one to ten, you will find that you will need to read around your subject and do any preparatory work requested for each session. Even so it can be difficult to understand exactly what you should be getting out of a tutorial. Tutorials are about the student having open access to the great minds of teaching staff to thrash out the ideas and arguments explored in your own reading and essays. Take an hour to read about the topic before going in, and ask as many questions as you can. Often tutors will ask you to read aloud your essays and will then give you extensive feedback and other ideas, which you should use as you progress in the course and return to the topic from other angles.