The start of any semester can be an uncertain time. Between new, busy schedules and more challenging content, figuring out the best way to study can seem daunting, especially as a freshman. But whether you are just starting college or are a seasoned senior, a common challenge students face is balancing work and school with life and socialization.

But there is a way to improve your grades while making new friends. Mississippi State University is one of the few schools in the United States that offers an accredited Supplemental Instruction (SI) program that allows students to review material for classes in a free, anonymous setting.

In SI sessions, students meet fellow undergraduate students who have excelled in the class before, and they lead group study sessions. SI sessions are allotted to courses with a higher level of “DFWs,” meaning a fair number of students in the class make a D, an F or withdraw from the class.

Since SI targets these historically difficult courses, students in those classes can study with peers and receive additional help from those students who have already completed and excelled in the particular class.

I teach an SI session for Modern US History, so I can attest that every single student who works as an SI leader is wholeheartedly dedicated to making sure every student feels welcomed and heard. SI leaders want to ensure that every student who comes to SI sessions leaves feeling more confident in the material and ready for the next class, quiz, paper, or test in the class.

In my experience, SI sessions are a fantastic way to study for a test and review missed test questions with peers. I went to SI sessions for my trigonometry class, and my average grades on tests and quizzes drastically improved. And I’m not alone in this, either.

According to Chelsey Vincent, a former SI coordinator at MSU, students who attend SI consistently average a half to a full letter grade higher than students who do not attend SI. In addition, students who attend SI sessions obtain higher rates of A’s, B’s and C’s. These statistics show how beneficial SI sessions can be, and serve as proof that students who want to score higher in hard classes should attend.

These reviews, study activities and discussions, also give students the unique opportunity to reinforce class material.

Marvin Minsky, a world-renowned computer scientist whose research focused on artificial intelligence, once said “You don’t understand anything until you learn it in more than one way.” SI sessions are the perfect way to learn class material in another way. Even if you only go once, or you are not convinced that SI is the best way to deepen your understanding of the material and make new friends in your class, the statistics do not lie.