Sometimes I wonder if my mom is really happy with the job she's done raising me. After all, I spent most of my time growing up playing video games and obsessing over comic books. My parents never pushed me to read or do school work. While other kids were doing their homework at the kitchen table, I was plopped down in front of a Playstation 2 and learning how to be a master of kung-fu (not really). As a result of my laziness and lack of motivation, I struggled in school for most of my academic career. When it came time for college, however, I realized that things needed to change.
When you're forced to get good grades in high school, it's easy enough to get by without putting much effort into your work. The modern tech we have today makes it so that it's really easy to get by and pass all your classes without ever cracking a book. Teachers and professors don't know what you're doing outside of class, and as long as they only see the grades you hand in they'll be none the wiser.
College is a different story. If you're not willing to put forth the effort required to excel in college, then there's no way that you'll succeed. I was forced to come face-to-face with my academic shortcomings when I started college, and I didn't like what I saw at first glance. It wasn't until my second year of school (when I had more time on my hands) where I was finally able to make some positive changes in both my attitude towards schooling and my actual performance in class.
When I moved into my dorm, I was fortunate enough to have a roommate that was also attending school. This allowed me to bounce ideas off of someone who was going through the same struggles as me. He helped me realize how important it is to take advantage of your opportunities when they present themselves. If you really want something, then you need to be willing to put in the work if necessary. It might seem like an obvious statement, but it's so easy for people (myself included) to get distracted and lose sight of what's really important in life.
My roommate and I used our free time while we were living together quite wisely. We would both get up early every morning and work on schoolwork or plan out our day ahead before going out on campus or doing something fun with some friends from class later on in the day. If we had a big assignment due at 8 am tomorrow, then we would stay up all night long making sure that it got done by then (I know this sounds crazy). As a result of that mentality, my grades improved dramatically from year one to year two.
In year one, I had an average GPA of 2.79. In year two, my average GPA was 3.74! That's a big difference. It wasn't easy to get good grades in college, but it made me a lot more confident when it came time for graduation and applying to jobs afterwards. My experiences with getting good grades taught me that hard work really does pay off in the end if you're willing to put forth the effort needed to reach your goals and dreams (or at least get closer).
So what did I learn from all of this? The following five lessons are things that I've taken away from my experience with getting good grades in college:
1.) How You Study Matters More Than How Much You Study: If you go into class every day and just do enough work to pass your classes, then you're never going to be successful in life because there's no way that someone will hire you or promote you if they feel like they can replace you with someone else who is just as capable or better than yourself (i.e. I am getting an education because my employer is paying me to learn new things). When I was in school, I would often hear stories about students who were falling asleep in class. While it's possible that they actually were falling asleep (they probably just didn't want to work hard at anything), that's not really an excuse for them because if they had stayed awake then they could have gotten more out of their classes.
If you don't put the extra effort into learning what the teacher is trying to teach you, then you'll never get anywhere in life. You need to be willing to ask questions if something confuses you or read material over again if it doesn't make sense the first time around. If there are terms that are new to you that aren't explained clearly enough, then find a way to go look them up on your own and see if there's a better definition for them somewhere else (most of the time there is). The best way for me personally was by using Google Scholar or Wikipedia.
I am going to end this article on a good note. I am going to write a conclusion paragraph right now. Conclusion: Conclusion is a word that means the end of a story, the end of a book, or the end of an argument or claim. In my opinion, writing an essay is not hard for me. Writing an essay is easy for me but it may be hard for others because they may not have enough time to do it and therefore they can't complete their work on time. Writing this article has been fun and enjoyable because I got use some useful tips from my professor during class about how people should study in order to become successful students in life and also he has given us some useful tips about how we can improve our grades in school by improving our academic performance as well as giving us some useful example questions that will help us with achieving higher grades in school as well as improving focus levels during class so we will be able to pass all our exams with flying colors!
In conclusion, college was one of the best times of my life so far (I'm only 20 years old). I've learned so much from my experiences there, whether they were good or bad.
