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| advice_column [2019/10/01 10:24] – edit | advice_column [2020/01/05 22:11] – jhoe |
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| =====How to do well in school===== | =====How to do well in school===== |
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| I assume all of you have the mental “horsepower” if you are at CMU in the first place. It is easy to do well if 1) you enjoy what you are studying AND 2) you apply good study “mechanics”. If the former is false, you have a big problem. But, the latter just takes discipline. I was going to write about study mechanics, but then I found [[https://www.cmu.edu/student-affairs/ocsi/academic-integrity/prevention.html |this]]. (This link isn’t presented from quite the right context, but it is the case though that a lot of academic woes could have been avoid in the first place with just good study mechanics.) Now you have an actual recipe for success written down in front of you, do you have the discipline to follow through? | I assume all of you have the mental “horsepower” if you are at CMU in the first place. It is easy to do well if 1) you enjoy what you are studying AND 2) you apply good study “mechanics”. If the former is false, you have a big problem. But, the latter just takes discipline. I was going to write about study mechanics, but then I found [[https://www.cmu.edu/student-affairs/ocsi/students/avoiding/index.html |this]]. (This link isn’t presented from quite the right context, but it is the case though that a lot of academic woes could have been avoid in the first place with just good study mechanics.) Now you have an actual recipe for success written down in front of you, do you have the discipline to follow through? |
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| Studying correctly will make learning more pleasant and productive---all the while taking LESS (not more) time. Nothing is more frustrating (and a big waste of time) than showing up to a lecture and not understanding what the professor is talking about. (Did you do the reading assignment beforehand?) Nothing is more frustrating (and a big waste of time) than struggling on a homework assignment that you fundamentally have no clue about. (Did you wait until the night before the deadline so you cannot get help in office hours? Did you skip the relevant lecture in the first place? Did you do the reading assignment?) These unpleasant scenarios and others like it can be avoided if you had the discipline and mechanics to do the right thing in the first place; trying to make up afterwards is a forever up-hill battle. Every topic you don’t understand well now will make it that much harder to understand the next topic that depends on it---don’t let it snowball. | Studying correctly will make learning more pleasant and productive---all the while taking LESS (not more) time. Nothing is more frustrating (and a big waste of time) than showing up to a lecture and not understanding what the professor is talking about. (Did you do the reading assignment beforehand?) Nothing is more frustrating (and a big waste of time) than struggling on a homework assignment that you fundamentally have no clue about. (Did you wait until the night before the deadline so you cannot get help in office hours? Did you skip the relevant lecture in the first place? Did you do the reading assignment?) These unpleasant scenarios and others like it can be avoided if you had the discipline and mechanics to do the right thing in the first place; trying to make up afterwards is a forever up-hill battle. Every topic you don’t understand well now will make it that much harder to understand the next topic that depends on it---don’t let it snowball. |
