Over 17 years of school, and only 2 terms under a 3.0 from high school to graduate school. If your first thought is school must come easy to him, that would be an incorrect statement. Over my first 12 years of school, I built up skills and techniques that allowed me to thrive in any academic setting. Today, I want to share a few of these skills and techniques that I have used to achieve academic success.
1: Complete the hard assignment first
The first time I realized I was using this technique was my first quarter of undergrad. I remember being in the dorm studying for my calculus final, and I opted to work on the problems I struggled with the most, and then come back to studying the easy problems. While I had done this throughout high school, this was the first time I realized, that I did this.
The benefit
While it might seem better to get the easier task done first, research shows that getting harder task done first actually leads to better long term results. Maryam Kouchaki, Northwestern University of Kellogg School of Management, conducted joint research with other universities, and examined 84 doctors over a 6 year period. What they noticed is that doctors who took on difficult cases experienced better long term performance. In other words, while studying we might have a tendency to focus on what we are already good at, but to achieve long term academic success, we should focus on our most difficult subjects first.
If you are looking for more reading on the subject, I would recommend reading Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy. For full transparency to validate my assumptions in this post with research, I reviewed a couple different articles and this books appeared in 2 of them. While I have not read it yet, I have decided to make it my book for the month of June.
2: Actually reading the reading assignments
Until my sophomore year of undergrad, I actually did read all of my reading assignments. The only reason I stopped is because I honestly did not have enough hours in the day. I remember being in my sociology course was my downfall, because I had 2 options: Read these 100 pages by next week and write a 1-2 page paper on the subject, or completing my engineering homework for understanding. I choose to complete my engineering work for understanding. Why would I say this is one of my tips to academic success? Well because in my Data Visualization and Dashboards class last semester, I was asked to read about 3 different books, and every Saturday I sat and read. I read the books because I knew if I wanted to carry those skills with me, I needed to read. Reading is not so much about the assignment, but about carrying the knowledge and skills with you. I still remember readings from elementary school, and I know it’s because I did the work.
The benefit
Research has shown that students who read regularly will develop larger vocabularies, this effect can be called “the Matthew effect”. From an academic perspective, this is a benefit to standardized test, college admissions, and writing assignments. Also, it does matter what medium you choose to read from as well. Research shows that readers who read printed materials remember more of what they read as opposed to readers who review only digital content. While these 2 different research articles are more focused on reading’s academic benefit, reading for fun has been shown to reduce stress, as well.
From my own opinion reading has helped me position my writing assignments better. Professors often mention “buzz words”, and these words often show up in reading assignments as well. For example in my Project Management course, the term triple constraints was mentioned every lecture. In my final essay, even though I specified the definition of triple constraints (scope, schedule, and budget), I still choose to use the exact term in my final essay. In 95% of my classes, using terminology referenced throughout the course instead of my own terminology has paid dividends. The one class it did not pay dividends was my sociology class, where after a midterm my TA told me, “I think you were trying to use vocabulary too much, and that took away from your essay responses.” In my sociology final, I did the opposite and used no extra vocabulary and in that one course scored higher. Overall, reading assignments helps me understand what professors are looking for so that I can write in a way that appeals to them.
For a further breakdown of the benefits of reading, I would read the following article: Benefits of Reading Books: How It Can Positively Effect Your Life (healthline.com)
Still don’t have time to get the reading done? Try out the SQ3R skimming method, which you can learn about here: Reading Techniques | Academic Skills Center (dartmouth.edu)
3: Find ways to make it fun
At the time of writing this, I am at my dad’s and my little sister told me her homework feels boring to her. This reminded me of something I started in elementary school to make things fun. I had a hard time when I was younger remembering that 7+6=13 and 8+7=15. So I made a story up in my head, it went something like this:
7 to 6: “I hate that together we’re only 13 and not 14 like I would be with another 7.”
8 to 7: “Stop picking on 6, when you can’t even make me 16. You and I together are only 15. “
Demetri Wilright
I don’t know why this resonated with me or how I made this up, what I do know is every time 6+7 are added, I know it’s 13 and every time 7+8 are added it’s going to be 15. This little story got me through math as a kid and I carried it with me throughout my academic career.
The benefit
Research shows that fun improves the learning experience for both children and adult learners. In the research fun was describe a few different ways, but some of the ways it was described are as follows: teaching the topic in a more creative way, taking breaks from the topic, and hard fun. Hard fun meaning the challenge of learning itself, and the feeling of accomplishment when successfully comprehending a topic. This research shows, that there are multiple ways to make a topic fun, and the good news is you get to decide how to make it fun. Finding the fun in your learning and then applying it will allow you to achieve better results.
Bonus: Ask for help
This is the one skill that I did not learn in before undergrad, I learned this while at Microsoft. I did not ask for help before this, I was the work at the problem until I can figure out how to solve it student. I was humbled when I was employed because my degree was in electrical engineering, and I was being taught IT networking. Very quickly I realized, if I am going to be successful here, I am going to have to ask for help. There was one co-worker who I looked at as the resident genius and I would ask him a ridiculous amount of questions when I first started. I have a feeling he started to get irritated when I asked basic questions but he still offered to help me or at least provide some guidance. This is when I learned asking for help is not a bad thing. If you were on a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean, would you not ask a boat passing by for help?
The Benefit
No research needed, asking for help will be beneficial to you, regardless of what type of student you are.
Summary
The 3 tips, and the bonus tip are what allow me to succeed academically and professionally. I share these tips with you in the hopes that these can help your own academic journey or career. I plan to write a series of these type of tips so each one can build upon the other. This is just the beginning of my tips to help others achieve.
Blkgradstudent 
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