Thromigal's Blog

My last two posts dealt with student adversity, what it feels like, and how to deal with it. I also talked about good study habits, which are essential to deal with academic difficulties. It is important to remember that good habits are yours and not someone else's. You have to find what works for you. Studying itself is not that hard once you find the rhythm and routine that works for you. In short, there is a lot of effort up front to find your method, and there is no short cut for that. Today I will write about how to get into a frame of mind to be able to develop good study habits. These are the habits I wrote about in the previous blog post. The habits are concepts, their exact form depends on your rhythm, and that is what takes searching and working hard to imbed those habits into your routine. But before you start doing this, let me mention something I have seen in many students in trouble. If you are a student that has been struggling academically you are probably feeling ...

Many students end up doing badly because they have not been able to find a rhythm for their academics. This can be disconcerting and lead to plenty of frustration. However, it is not that difficult to work out an approach that works reasonably well. This is not to say that one size fits all and that there is a single solution that works for everyone. But there are some general principles that seem to work well in helping a student find his/her working style/rhythm. So here are some pointers. Study First. Deal with the academics before everything else. Let play come later. This is a very important guideline, especially for a struggling student. Of course you need a balance between work and relaxation, and working all the time is not going to be good for you. But not putting the study time first will in fact prevent you from reaching a sweet spot in terms of balance. If you get your work done first, you will in fact enjoy the remaining time much more, as you would have earned the much n...

This is my first post this year, and it comes at a time when things look very gloomy in the world. The recession appears deep, and students are struggling with finding jobs or even paying for their education. I still think investing in human capital remains the best investment. However, the real investment in human capital is not monetary (paying fees) but instead, it is sweat equity. Students often imagine that their mere existence on campus after paying their fees goes directly to their human capital bottom line. Wrong. Human capital accretion comes from investing time and energy into really learning. And more, from learning how to learn. An undergraduate education is intense. It takes students time to settle down, by which time they may even have missed many important concepts, all of which needed to be deeply understood, so that the student can move on to the next level. But students wing it, thinking they will pick it all up later, or worse, convince themselves that it is not real...