success tips for students

Success Tips For Students

Success Tips For Students
21. Have educational goals
Successful students are motivated by what their goals represent in terms of career aspirations and lifes desires. Ask yourself these questions: What am I doing here Is there some better place I could be What does my presence here mean to me Answers to these questions represent your Hot Buttons and are, without a doubt, the most important factors in your success as a college student. If your educational goals are truly yours, not someone elses, they will motivate a vital and positive academic attitude. If you are familiar with what these hot buttons represent and refer to them often, especially when you tire of being a student, nothing can stop you; if you arent and dont, everything can, and will.
22. Ask questions
Successful students ask questions to provide the quickest route between ignorance and knowledge.In addition to securing knowledge you seek, asking questions has at least two other extremely important benefits. The process helps you pay attention to your professor and helps your professor pay attention to you, Think about it. If you want something, go after it. Get the answer now, or fail a question later. There are no foolish questions, only foolish silence. Its your choice.
23. Learn that a student and a professor make a team
Most instructors want exactly what you want: they would like for you to learn the material in their respective classes and earn a good grade.Successful students reflect well on the efforts of any teacher; if you have learned your material, the instructor takes some justifiable pride in teaching. Join forces with your instructor, they are not an enemy, you share the same interests, the same goals in short, youre teammates. Get to know your professor. Youre the most valuable players on the same team. Your jobs are to work together for mutual success. Neither wishes to chalk up a losing season. Be a team player.
24. Dont sit in the back
Successful students minimize classroom distractions that interfere with learning.Students want the best seat available for their entertainment dollars, but willingly seek the worst seat for their educational dollars. Students who sit in the back cannot possibly be their professors teammate (see no. 4). Why do they expose themselves to the temptations of inactive classroom experiences and distractions of all the people between them and their instructor Of course, we know they chose the back of the classroom because they seek invisibility or anonymity, both of which are antithetical to efficient and effective learning. If you are trying not to be part of the class, why, then, are you wasting your time? Push your hot buttons, is their something else you should be doing with your time.
25. Take good notes
Successful students take notes that are understandable and organized, and review them often.Why put something into your notes you dont understand? Ask the questions now that are necessary to make your notes meaningful at some later time. A short review of your notes while the material is still fresh on your mind helps your learn more. The more you learn then, the less youll have to learn later and the less time it will take because you wont have to include some deciphering time, also. The whole purpose of taking notes is to use them, and use them often. The more you use them, the more they improve.
26. Understand that actions affect learning
Successful students know their personal behavior affect their feelings and emotions which in turn can affect learning.If you act in a certain way that normally produces particular feelings, you will begin to experience those feelings. Act like youre bored, and youll become bored. Act like youre uninterested, and youll become uninterested. So the next time you have trouble concentrating in the classroom, act like an interested person: lean forward, place your feet flat on the floor, maintain eye contact with the professor, nod occasionally, take notes, and ask questions. Not only will you benefit directly from your actions, your classmates and professor may also get more excited and enthusiastic.
27. Talk about what theyre learning
Successful students get to know something well enough that they can put it into words.Talking about something, with friends or classmates, is not only good for checking whether or not you know something, its a proven learning tool. Transferring ideas into words provides the most direct path for moving knowledge from short term to long term memory. You really dont know material until you can put it into words. So, next time you study, dont do it silently. Talk about notes, problems, readings, etc. with friends, recite to a chair, organize an oral study group, pretend youre teaching your peers. Talk learning produces a whole host of memory traces that result in more learning.
28. Dont cram for exams
Successful students know that divided periods of study are more effective than cram sessions, and they practice it.If there is one thing that study skills specialists agree on, it is that distributed study is better than massed, late night, last ditch efforts known as cramming. Youll learn more, remember more, and earn a higher grade by studying in four, one hour a night sessions for Fridays exam than studying for four hours straight on Thursday night. Short, concentrated preparatory efforts are more efficient and rewarding than wasteful, inattentive, last moment marathons. Yet, so many students fail to learn this lesson and end up repeating it over and over again until it becomes a wasteful habit. Not too clever, huh.
29. Are good time managers
Successful students do not procrastinate. They have learned that time control is life control and have consciously chosen to be in control of their life.An elemental truth: you will either control time or be controlled by it, Its your choice: you can lead or be led, establish control or relinquish control, steer your own course or follow others. Failure to take control of their own time is probably the no. 1 study skills problem for college students. It ultimately causes many students to become non students, Procrastinators are good excuse makers. Dont make academics harder on yourself than it has to be. Stop procrastinating.
30. Try not to do too much studying at one time
If you try to do too much studying at one time, you will tire and your studying will not be very effective. Space the work you have to do over shorter periods of time. Taking short breaks will restore your mental energy.