How to Excel and Be a Successful Student

What is successful learning? How do I become a super-star student? How do I excel?

These are questions I’ve pondered a various points in my higher education pursuit. In the last nearly two years I’ve come up with what I believe are the answers to these provoking questions that good-grade-crazy students like myself ponder. However, I can’t say that the answers I have experienced or deduced are the keys to becoming a 4.0 student, but they are the keys to doing the best possible job you can.

Learning is a lifelong process; the lessons I learn in general biology pave the way to greater and higher-level things, such as understanding respiratory physiology or understanding how to explain the defenses of gram-negative bacteria against antibiotics as a test essay question. College is all about building blocks to advanced knowledge. It doesn’t just happen in four years, but likely between seventy-five and eighty years. I can’t expect to learn critical thinking overnight; instead it comes from the process of mind-stimulating classes and real-life applications of class principles.

Success is subjective. To a student who struggles in mathematics, scoring a 90% on an exam is something to buy a burrito at Taco Bell over, while to a perfectionist or idealist, life has just unfriended you. Rather than calling success a 4.0 cumulative grade point average, call it studying to your utmost ability with the best job you can do in mind. For example, I’m not naturally gifted in being able to retain math for longer than a few weeks at most. Since I excel in the sciences I have set myself up for feeling crushed when I am the one that scores 90% on my first math test of the year rather than 99% in Anatomy and Physiology. Just because I can’t pull a high grade in math doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a student. I just have to pick myself up again, maybe re-adjust my definition of success, and go for my goal of doing my best.

Success is about attitude. You can choose your battles when it comes to school. Rather than a pity party with your feelings, why not invest that time into studying for next time? When my emotions begin building over a test score I feel is inferior to my ideals, I have to remember that my success isn’t about the end of the semester class grade, but rather about making the subject my own. I can succeed when I set my attitude in line realizing that I am a failure up until I do my best. Once I try my best I need to have peace knowing that I can’t do more than that. Often times putting an honest effort into a subject is just the ticket you need to do well with your classes, not only emotionally but also scholastically.

Excelling as a student is a great goal, but make school real for you. The world has lots of smart people. India alone has more brilliantly gifted students than America has high school students! No matter how good you are or want to be, there’s always someone smarter. That’s not to put your goals down at all or to sell yourself short of your potential. You should shoot for the moon, but if you don’t get into NASA don’t feel badly. Maybe that kind of success isn't for you. Don’t focus on the college transcript; focus on setting your goals straight. Forget the GPA! I’m telling you! Dump it! Make the information your own. Learn that physics like your life depends on it (guess what? It does!), seek to make understanding the concepts of ecology applicable to how you dispose of your garbage, and apply the principles from communications class to your daily conversations with your family. In short, by focusing on real-life application of learning you will grow in your thinking, reasoning, studying, and yes, even testing abilities! Just as some types of bacteria scavenge around picking up stray genes and incorporating them into their own DNA, you can take the class materials presented you and integrate it right into your every day life!

Excelling as a student means excelling as an individual. Be the best person you can be. Just because there are all those smarter people that doesn’t mean you can’t be smart too. If you set your mind to it, you can do anything. Men like Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. William Foege have dreamed big and changed the world. If learning doesn’t coming easily, step back to analyze your attitude about success and grades. If you can make the material your own the grades will fall into place. A friend recently told me “We to remember that life isn't always going to give us what we want. We can work hard at something, but in the end, we get what we get”. That means that even if the grades still aren’t great, it’s working hard that counts. Cultivating characteristics that will improve your day to day life and future will be of more value than all the accounting and inorganic chemistry you will ever study!

Success is trying your hardest to do your best.

Let the rest of the school stress be still. It’s not going to get you a better grade. Don’t be afraid of some elbow grease or tear stains on your textbook. Dig in hard, be the person you feel you can be, and don’t give up. Make learning your life goal, and sharing wisdom with others a byproduct of your attempts do make facts experiences.