Posts published on November 10, 2016

Getting an Edge – How to Get Better Results at College

By Melissa Burns

Students worry about a lot of different problems, but when all is said and done the most significant issue they have to face at college is rather straightforward: how to get better grades, preferably without spending 25 hours a day studying? Here we’ve prepared a list of things that can actually help, both in short and long term.

1.    Getting Organized

You may think whatever you want, you may believe yourself to be a representative of a creatively chaotic subclass of human beings who eschew timetables and plans because they are too restrictive for their personalities. In reality, success and results always comes to people who get organized, prioritize their efforts correctly and decide what they need before they start working. Stop right now. Write down everything you have to do. Check due dates. Remember all the debts. And start working in a methodical manner – you will be amazed how quickly you will get first results.

2.    Medications

Somebody may think that it is a little over the top, but just think about it: human body is, more or less, a biomechanical construct, which shares many similarities with machines and mechanisms. You may be more than willing to put every effort into studying, but quite often your body – mostly brain – sabotages your attempts, especially today, when students face higher stress levels and greater workloads than ever before in history. It is no wonder than in such a situation students suffer from depression, become prone to panic attacks, suffer from anxiety, lost ability to concentrate and so on. Talk therapy and suchlike take a long time and have dubious effectiveness – at the same time medications like antidepressants, nootropics, central neural system stimulants, ADHD meds work quickly, improving your concentration and ability to work long hours. Just don’t get too reliant on them, and everything will be alright.

3.    Eliminating Procrastination

No matter how much you manage to do in a single day, there is always a way to do more. What’s more important is that it doesn’t require you staying up around the clock and completely foregoing any kind of personal life. Try writing down everything you spend your time on, literally everything, minute by minute – and you will see that absolute majority of this precious resource is spent not simply lazing off, but doing silly little things like checking your Facebook status every time you feel you need a little rest, or talking on phone about things you can’t even remember afterwards, or something else in the same vein. Concentrate on important things. Start your day with doing the biggest task. Eliminate all those little insignificant things that don’t move you forward.

4.    Work Out

If you take care about yourself physically, many other things tend to fall into place of their own accord. You will waste less time being sick. You will sleep better, resulting in higher quality rest and better memory and higher concentration. You will be more disciplined, and it is going to flow over to other areas of your life.

5.    Take Regular Breaks

These should be carefully balanced out. On the one hand, you have to spend a good 10-15 minutes getting into a new activity, which has to be repeated after every break. On the other hand, after you work on a single task for a considerable amount of time, your brain gets tired and becomes less and less effective until you switch to something else for a while. Thus, don’t allow it to get into a rut – take regular breaks, preferably for some physical activity.

Although education is much more than simply about grades, they are still a good indicator of how well you are doing – which means that anything that can improve them is worth doing.

Melissa Burns graduated from the faculty of Journalism of Iowa State University in 2008. Nowadays she  is an entrepreneur and independent journalist. Her sphere of interests includes startups, information technologies and how these ones may be implemented.