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The classic concept of a good student
is kind of a cliché. I'm sure you can imagine the average “good
student's” grades in some pretty clear details. The “good
student” is the kind of student that gets above average grades in
every subject. I'm sure you've met at least a few of these people in
your life but what about you?
Are you a good student? Do you thrive
equally in all of your classes?
Sure, there are a few good students
reading this article but the vast majority of people reading this
aren't that easy to define as good students. If you're like most
people, you're a great student in some subjects but there are other
areas that you struggle to get through. This is natural.
In typical schooling children are
taught that it's wrong to be deficient in some areas and strong in
other areas. No matter how strong a student is in English, they'll
never graduate high school if they don't figure out math. This just
trains people to stop training the areas they're experts in and focus
on training what they're bad at.
Most schools focus on trying to make
all students into these typical “good students.”
While you can learn to work in that
framework, be sure to understand the problems that come with it.
Exceptional Gets Appreciated
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People who are equally good at
everything are in a really tough spot in life. Schools are trained to
make students like this. That means, the competition is quite fierce.
If you're going to go into any academically strong college around the
world, you're going to find tons of people that were above average at
every subject. They're not special.
The only people who get jobs from
exceptionally well-rounded grades are those students that can get
better grades than 95% of their competition. Those are the students
that get recruited to big positions in life. Every other well-rounded
student is still stuck trying to compete for normal jobs. There is a
major problem with that though.
Being equally good in multiple fields
of study means you need to sacrifice expertise in specific fields of
study. Students that don't get those exceptional opportunities for
being one of the best suddenly have to compete with students that are
exceptionally good at specific fields of study. If you're a company
recruiting for an important job, you don't necessarily care if the
person you're hiring is good at some unrelated subject. You certainly
care that the person hired is great at one particular subject.
While the best opportunities go to the
people that are great at everything, the competition is ridiculous.
The next best (and sometimes better) opportunities tend to go to
people exceptionally good at specific things. The competition is also
much less intense. The students that fail to become exceptional
because they tried too hard to be well-rounded end up losing out.
Unless you're exceptionally gifted, do
not try and compete in exceptional well-roundedness.
This is life advice. It's not
necessarily for all school opportunities...
School Loves Average
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While all this is great for everyday
life. School isn't so simple.
School is not a natural environment.
No matter how good you get at one
particular subject, you'll never be allowed to move forward in
schooling without propelling in the other subjects. This can make it
challenging because no two people have the same strengths.
Not only does school encourage a lack
of focus for your education. It downright requires it. That means,
unfortunately, you must find the appropriate compromise for yourself
to continue to move forward in school.
You may love writing more than anything
else in the world but you must be willing to leave that behind to
keep learning other subjects. To understand the true horror of this
situation, consider the fact that most students are so dominant in
one particular subject that they virtually can't spend any of their
time on that one subject they actually care about because they're so
occupied by keeping up in other subjects. (That's a long sentence but
it's making an important point.)
In the writing example, that would mean
you can't spend any more than the minimum time writing because you
need to spend all of your free time worrying about other subject you
don't really care about.
Is this bad? Yes. Definitely. That
being said, don't live in the negatives. By acknowledging the problem
you are in the perfect position to find the solution.
Focus On Exceptional
In school, you're forced to maintain
some minimal grade in every subject. You are not required to excel in
them. (That being said, most people can be above average academically
with just a little time and a few good decisions that's what this
site is all about. Fundamentally though, remember that you're making
your decisions. You're the one in control.)
There is a loophole with school's
educational plan that you need to be aware of though. You don't
actually have to be good at a subject to get a good grade in that
subject. And, no, I'm not referring to cheating. I'm referring to
learning a few key, subject independent strategies that can increase
your grades dramatically without needing more time invested. That
being said, many of these strategies don't really increase your
competency in the subject.
I have hundreds of examples of this
throughout my old blog posts but to get you started, here are a few
ideas:
By properly understanding and adjusting
to your syllabus in a course, you can easily focus your energy on
only the areas that provide a major impact on your grades. For
example, if homework is 85% of your grade then be sure to do it. If
tests are 85% of your grade then homework might be worth skipping.
By using last minute short-term memory
study strategies, you can remember large amounts of information for a
test while investing less than 20 minutes into studying. That can
instantly prop up your grade while studying less.
Most school require certain amounts of
attendance to class. One easy way to not invest more time is to
actually use the time in class to pay attention. I know it's hard.
You don't have to if you don't want to but you can certainly save
yourself time outside of class if you pay attention.
You can even learn to read faster. Most
people can consciously increase their reading speeds by huge amounts
with hardly any practice. This increased reading speed can even help
comprehension because you're a whole lot less bored while reading.
Strategies like these ones allow you to
become an exceptional student. You're not exceptional because you
learn what they want you to learn well. You're exceptional because
you know how to play the game they're forcing you into.
Once you learn to use strategies like
these, you'll have plenty of time to focus on doing the things that
really make you happy. These are the subjects that you can become
exceptional at.
When you become exceptional at
something, the world will treat you well. Sure, you may not know
enough to master any other subject but the truth is, you'll never
have to.
While in school, it can help to look
like a good student but in life, don't be a good student. Be damn
good at something.
If you want to know the secrets to
learning faster than ever, be sure to check out some of the old
articles on this blog. Also follow this blog because there are some
massive tips coming soon that you won't want to miss.
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