How Do You Modify Your Student Advice for a Part-Time Student?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.280 | We'll start with a question from Johnny.

00:00:09.840 | Johnny asks, is there anything you'd

00:00:11.920 | add to how to be a straight A student for someone

00:00:15.560 | doing a part-time evening class postgraduate degree?

00:00:20.560 | Well, Johnny, I'll point out that you are actually probably

00:00:24.160 | in the majority of readers of that book of mine,

00:00:27.120 | How to Become a Straight A Student, in that,

00:00:29.400 | as far as I can tell, the biggest audience for that book

00:00:32.320 | are non-traditional college students.

00:00:34.960 | By non-traditional, I mean not doing

00:00:37.840 | four-year residential college.

00:00:40.200 | There's a lot of part-time college,

00:00:41.800 | returning to college later in life,

00:00:43.320 | coming to college on the GI Bill, first-generation students.

00:00:47.160 | So there's a real interesting and diverse pool

00:00:50.240 | of people who come to that book that

00:00:52.400 | are all unified by this willingness to say,

00:00:55.360 | this is a challenge.

00:00:57.160 | I want to do well in this challenge.

00:00:58.800 | I'm looking for advice.

00:01:01.160 | Traditional four-year, 19-year-old residential college

00:01:04.680 | students aren't usually so interested in advice.

00:01:07.320 | As I've talked about before, college for them

00:01:10.160 | is also serving all these other roles.

00:01:12.400 | It's a social experience.

00:01:13.960 | It's a developmental experience as they

00:01:16.720 | try to emerge into their adult situations.

00:01:18.720 | And they're not really thinking about,

00:01:20.380 | how do I structure my studying?

00:01:21.680 | But non-traditional students say, let's get after it.

00:01:23.920 | Look, I'm paying money to take these courses.

00:01:25.920 | I want to get good grades.

00:01:27.000 | I want to return my investment.

00:01:28.520 | How do I study?

00:01:29.120 | Let's go.

00:01:30.000 | So these are my people.

00:01:31.360 | You are my people.

00:01:32.440 | All right, so here's what I would recommend

00:01:35.000 | to keep in mind from that book.

00:01:36.800 | If you're doing a degree part-time,

00:01:38.400 | and in your elaboration, you know that your job's pretty hard.

00:01:41.800 | So it's part-time.

00:01:42.920 | It's at night.

00:01:43.520 | You're exhausted.

00:01:44.920 | A few things I'd keep in mind.

00:01:46.600 | One, slow down.

00:01:49.040 | To the extent possible, make sure you're not

00:01:52.600 | overloading the number of courses

00:01:54.880 | or the difficulty of courses that you're taking at once.

00:01:58.360 | It's real easy as you're laying out

00:01:59.960 | your plan for how you're going to get this degree to say,

00:02:02.280 | let's just pile it on.

00:02:04.720 | Let's pile it on and just power through this thing.

00:02:06.920 | And it's going to be so impressive.

00:02:08.960 | Our energy to get this degree will push us through.

00:02:11.280 | Your energy to get the degree will not push you through

00:02:13.520 | when you're working long shifts and you're trying

00:02:15.160 | to do these courses at night.

00:02:16.360 | So design a course schedule to the degree that's possible

00:02:18.760 | that is reasonable.

00:02:20.520 | The number one thing you can do--

00:02:22.600 | I used to call this on my blog back when

00:02:24.840 | I was giving student advice.

00:02:26.360 | And I would say, avoid heart attack semesters.

00:02:30.160 | Because to me, a heart attack semester

00:02:31.720 | is where it is an unforced error.

00:02:34.280 | You didn't have to, but you chose

00:02:36.320 | to build up a collection of courses

00:02:39.040 | that is uniquely difficult.

00:02:41.640 | 8 out of 10 of the issues I would

00:02:43.160 | hear from students who were drowning in their work

00:02:45.440 | were avoidable if they had just had a more reasonable course

00:02:48.640 | load.

00:02:49.120 | So that's the first thing I want to emphasize.

00:02:51.360 | Two, you want to automate to the degree possible.

00:02:54.320 | Here is the work that is generated on a regular basis

00:02:58.520 | from each of my courses.

00:03:00.400 | This is when I do each of these things of work

00:03:02.680 | and where I do it.

00:03:04.400 | The reading for this class happens on Tuesday nights,

00:03:06.960 | and I do it here.

00:03:07.840 | I don't come straight home from work.

00:03:09.340 | I go to the library that's down the street from my house.

00:03:12.520 | 90 minutes is enough time to get that reading done.

00:03:15.220 | I work on my lab reports first thing early Saturday morning

00:03:18.360 | before my kids' sports practices happen,

00:03:21.240 | figure out to the extent possible when

00:03:23.000 | and where all of the regularly occurring work

00:03:25.480 | happens so that you do not have to go through this thought

00:03:28.400 | process every day when you're tired and coming home

00:03:30.600 | from work, what should I do?

00:03:32.800 | Should I work on something?

00:03:34.280 | So I would suggest that if you're

00:03:36.320 | taking your classes at night, which it sounds like you are,

00:03:39.720 | consider to the extent possible connecting these workblocks

00:03:42.320 | to those classes.

00:03:43.400 | As long as you're already in the cognitive mindset

00:03:46.880 | of scholarship, ride that wave.

00:03:50.120 | I do the class, go right from the class

00:03:51.960 | to the library on campus.

00:03:53.280 | Let's go.

00:03:53.800 | I get the work done right there while the information's

00:03:56.280 | still fresh in my brain.

00:03:57.280 | That's often quite efficient.

00:04:00.120 | Three, really have to keep in mind the core formula

00:04:05.000 | from that book, which says when it comes to academic work,

00:04:10.080 | the total quantity of work produced

00:04:13.280 | is the product of the time spent and the intensity

00:04:18.840 | of your focus during that time.

00:04:21.600 | If your time is limited, the biggest

00:04:24.720 | knob you have to turn to get the same amount of work

00:04:27.800 | done in less time is that intensity of focus.

00:04:30.160 | So when you're going to work, you go to a place to work,

00:04:32.880 | and you've got to laser beam it.

00:04:34.480 | You cannot, in your situation where

00:04:36.280 | you have limited time and mental energy,

00:04:38.200 | you cannot, cannot, cannot do your school

00:04:40.720 | work with a phone with you.

00:04:42.600 | You cannot, cannot, cannot do your school work

00:04:44.640 | while you're also jumping over to check MLB trade rumors.

00:04:47.440 | You cannot be doing this back and forth context shift,

00:04:50.000 | and you cannot be texting with people.

00:04:52.040 | Everyone in your life needs to know

00:04:53.560 | that during your school work blocks, it is a black hole.

00:04:58.120 | You can't get through to Johnny unless you

00:04:59.800 | call the emergency number.

00:05:01.040 | He has his do not disturb cranked up to 11.

00:05:03.600 | He's very hard to get in touch with.

00:05:05.600 | If you can really push that intensity of focus high,

00:05:07.960 | you are going to greatly reduce the time required.

00:05:10.120 | And the final piece of advice I'm going to give

00:05:12.000 | is care about how you actually do the work.

00:05:16.080 | Banish the word study.

00:05:18.600 | Banish the word read from your vocabulary.

00:05:21.520 | Those are way too generic.

00:05:22.640 | Those are way too ambiguous.

00:05:24.160 | You're preparing for a test.

00:05:25.440 | How are you preparing for the test?

00:05:27.400 | And why are you doing it that way?

00:05:28.800 | Be incredibly specific.

00:05:29.840 | I'm putting this on index cards.

00:05:31.840 | I'm going to review the index cards in this way.

00:05:34.000 | And here's what the criteria I have to get to before I

00:05:36.920 | consider myself done.

00:05:38.280 | Be incredibly specific about how you're going to do your work.

00:05:41.520 | I'm not just going to quote unquote read.

00:05:44.040 | I'm going to take this chapter, and here's

00:05:45.800 | how I'm going to take the information and what format

00:05:47.560 | I'm going to put it to, how I'm going to capture

00:05:49.200 | the relevant facts into a notebook.

00:05:50.880 | And I'm going to capture them in a format that

00:05:52.360 | makes it as easy as possible to shift from there to studying.

00:05:55.040 | Get specific.

00:05:56.600 | And then when you're done with a test or a major assignment,

00:05:59.880 | do a postmortem.

00:06:01.280 | What worked with my systems?

00:06:02.680 | What was a waste of time?

00:06:03.720 | What hurt?

00:06:04.560 | An upgrade.

00:06:05.800 | Always be upgrading and evolving those systems.

00:06:08.040 | Real specificity.

00:06:09.400 | If you do those four things, if you keep your semesters

00:06:12.000 | reasonable, if you try to automate when and where

00:06:14.480 | the work gets done, if you pump up that intensity,

00:06:17.400 | your phone is in another zip code

00:06:18.920 | when you're working on your schoolwork,

00:06:20.560 | and if you're incredibly focused on how you do the work

00:06:24.840 | and trying to improve those methods.

00:06:26.680 | I tell people sometimes, by the way,

00:06:29.160 | your goal should be to write a book on how to study when

00:06:32.360 | you're done with college so that you're constantly

00:06:34.480 | thinking from the standpoint of what works and what doesn't.

00:06:36.980 | If you do those four things, you're going to ace it.

00:06:39.440 | You're going to ace these courses.

00:06:40.920 | It's not going to be that bad.

00:06:42.720 | I am not just making this up.

00:06:44.080 | Again, I hear from reader after reader

00:06:46.480 | who are in similar situations, and they often

00:06:48.560 | come back with the same response, which

00:06:50.640 | was, this was a lot easier than I thought it was.

00:06:54.120 | I'm getting better grades than these younger

00:06:55.960 | kids in these classes, and I'm working a lot less.

00:06:59.080 | Put these things into action, Johnny.

00:07:00.620 | I think you're going to do great.

00:07:02.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:07:05.360 | (upbeat music)

00:07:07.940 | (upbeat music)

How Do You Modify Your Student Advice for a Part-Time Student? | Deep Questions Podcast

Chapters