Where You Study Matters

Image Source

Student after student has been told the same piece of bad advice time and time again. The empirical studies on this subject have shown how stupid this piece of advice is but teachers, parents, and everyone else with a complete lack of creativity seems to spout it out like gospel. If you're looking to improve your grades they tell you to “work harder.”

I know, you probably don't think that sounds stupid at first thought but there have been repeated studies on this. Working harder is absolutely awesome in some aspects of life.  If you're looking to dig a hole in the ground, it helps to work harder. If you're looking to bang your head against a wall until you can use that hole as your own final resting place, working harder helps again. That being said, if you're trying to do something that requires more than a handful of brain cells, working harder is probably just going to screw you over.

A conscience effort to work harder almost always leads to increased stress hormones. Increased stress hormones are useful when you're running from a bear but they're detrimental if you need to think creatively or are trying to remember something. There are much more important factors that need to be considered when looking to improve your grades that don't run that same risk of stalling your study progress completely.

It's much more effective to focus on the mechanics of your studying to improve your grades. After that, you can worry about optimizing your “effort.” One of the  most important of those mechanics you need to worry about is the environment that you're studying in. (If you want to learn more about those other mechanics then be sure to check out this blogs archives.)

Your Personal Study Bubble

The human brain isn't designed to plop itself into isolation from the rest of the world to study. You can't sit down in the middle of Times Square with your textbook and expect to be capable of learning the information you need to learn effectively. Your brain is designed to be easily “distractable.”

Just look at it from an evolutionary perspective. Which brain is more likely to survive and breed, the one that hears a branch break and looks in that direction, or the one that thinks it's studying is more important than a potential predator? Of course, studying means nothing when a tiger can eat you alive. You've, thankfully, inherited that easily distracted brain.

With that, you need to learn to work with it instead of constantly trying to fight it. To help you work around it, I recommend thinking about your need for “your personal study bubble.”

You should only be studying while in your personal study bubble (or possibly in a group personal study bubble, but I've never been able to appreciate the benefits myself. I always felt unnatural studying in groups but if it works for you...)

In the ideal world, your personal study bubble would be a completely safe and quiet room without any distractions from your studying. That means no phone, no people, and virtually no entertainment short of the textbook. If you can make that happen then I highly recommend it. That being said, I've virtually never been able to make it happen for more than a day or two myself. People generally need to work at it.

Working Out The Kinks

Image Source

If you're not privileged to complete silence, complete seclusion, or even a safe place, you need to find a way to make the bubble work.

For example, if you don't have a completely silent place to study. A library may be an acceptable alternative. While it's not completely silent, the quiet voices and environment will reduce distractions. Let's say you don't even have a semi-quiet place to study.  Perhaps you can only study in your frat house or something. What do you do then? While leaving would be ideal, you may be able to block out the background noises with music (or white noise on repeat in your headphones.)

Students regularly complain to me that they struggle to study because of interruptions from other people. People say that their friends or parents “won't leave them alone!” This brings two thoughts to my mind.

How could they possibly interrupt you? Seriously, turn off your phone, lock the door, or run away into the forest if you have to. When I'm setting up to study, there is virtually no way someone could possibly interrupt me. That is the ideal scenario. (No... do not play the “emergencies” card. Emergencies don't happen every 10 minutes you've turned off your phone.)

Even when people find a way to interrupt my studying, they don't do it more than once or twice. Why not? If I'm interrupted, I start by politely (but harshly) asking them to value my study time and leave me alone (perhaps with an expletive if we're close.) If I'm interrupted again, I respond coldly and accept that they're not going to help me study so I need to get away from them to study. They're no longer to be trusted. The evidence has officially shown that they disregard requests to be alone to study. Accept the evidence and find a way around it. (Maybe a new place to study will help.)

By consciously changing your environment to be your personal study bubble, you do more than just improve your immediate study environment. You also signal to yourself, and other people, that you're in your study bubble and your damn well taking it seriously. That improves studying in more ways than you can count.

Constant Improvement

Image Source

The most important point you can get from this article is not the specific study recommendations. It's realizing the necessity for improving your study environment. Most students give up almost immediately when their study environment gets compromised. Maybe the library they're studying in gets filled with loud people. Instead of getting up and leaving, the student will sit there and stew in their frustration for an hour praying that the loud people will get run over by a truck. That strategy isn't helpful (especially since trucks rarely drive through libraries.)

Students always need to be looking to improve their study environment because the world is constantly changing, and, of course, there is always room for improved study efficiency. While it can seem virtually impossible to change your ability to focus, everyone has some control over their physical environment. Use it.

Do you want to know how to study in less than fifteen minutes a night? Check out the archives of this blog for details. (Also, be sure to check out my ebooks on Amazon. Check them out in the sidebar.)

Should I Switch Majors? - Reader Question

Image Source

I was recently asked a question by a college student that I felt was well worth discussing. He told me about how much he regretted choosing his college major. He was looking for advice on whether or not to change college majors. I figured I could respond best using a full article. Hopefully it will help some of my readers too.

Hold on a second. You want to switch college majors? I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you put a whole lot of thought into selecting your first college major. Considering you put all that thought into selecting your first college major, why are you now changing your mind?

I know this can sound like I'm being a bit harsh but please stick with this. I switched majors in college too. It's not a horrible thing. I just want to make sure you can look at this honestly.

You made a mistake the first time you picked a major. If you can admit that then you're on the right track. That being said, since you made a mistake the first time you made this decision, what makes you think you're not making a mistake this time?

The Second Requires More Than The First

Selecting your college major in the first place can be difficult. No one wants to go down the wrong path and lose years of their life to a major that's not quite right. Some high school students spend years working on solving this problem. Eventually though, most of them come to some confidence in their selection of majors.

If you want to switch majors then deciding which major to switch to should require even more commitment than you had with your original major. What do I mean by that?

If you were 90% sure you wanted to go for your first major then to switch to new major you should be well more than 90% (I'd say 95% or more) sure you want to go to the second major.

Sadly, most students that switch majors aren't that confident. The fact that they screwed up their decision in the first place destroys their confidence. If you screw up a decision when you're 90% sure you're right then it should be really difficult to be 90% sure again. That's natural. (If it's not then I think you need to do some soul searching.)

Going to college is not cheap.

If you're taking out loans to go to college then you're losing tens of thousands of dollars a year. Even in the highest paying fields around, that's going to take a while to pay off. Every month that you spend in a major that doesn't increase your future income, you're making a mistake.

Even if your school is completely paid for. It's a big mistake to lose sight of the years you're wasting. If you're like most college students, you're under 25. These are some of the best potential years of your life. You can do more now then you'll ever be able to do in the future.

College is expensive in every sense of the word. If you're not using college like a real investment then you're making a mistake.

Consider The Hard Decision

Image Source

Before you think about switching majors, consider the possibility of leaving college. I know... everyone tells you that's one of the most stupid things you can do but consider it. Do it solely to prove you're not just staying in college to make everyone happy. Leave college out of the equation. What are you motivated to do right now if you're out of college?

Anything?

Some people have a very clear answer. Some want to start businesses. Some want to work at good trade jobs. Some want to travel. If you have an answer like this then know it before you decide to switch majors. Is switching majors really what you want to do? If you're driven enough to do crazy-awesome things then you can always go back to college later. (As long as you're smart enough not to make life trapping decisions.)

Of course, your clear answer might be, get into this particular career field. To get into that field you might need college. If you don't need college for a basic position in that field then consider getting into that field without college. (If you want to be a nurse, spend some time as a CNA. Sure, you won't get perfect experience but you'll learn to appreciate the environment. Or, of course, you might learn you hate it.) If you absolutely need college and want to get in that field more than all your other goals then college is likely the route you should be taking.

That being said, most people don't have any particular goals. Most people use college as a testing ground for potential futures.

I hate to break it to you but college is a really expensive place to be experimenting with futures. If you want to know what you want to do for a living then get a few crappy jobs in environments that you might want to be in. If you want to be a building project manager then get a crappy construction job. If you want to be a doctor, get a crappy hospital job. You get a paid chance to learn what the environment is really like. You'll get to watch people in the position you want to hold. Do you think you'd enjoy doing what they're doing? If not, don't. If so then you can be on your way to a new major.

That doesn't guarantee you'll like the job when you get it but it's a whole lot more effective than studying random things from a textbook about the career field.

Don't make the mistake of assuming you need college to become successful and happy. (It can certainly help if you're in the right field of study but until you know where you're going, you're going to be wasting a lot of time and money with it.)

Should You Switch?

Image Source

If you're damn sure then you should switch majors.

There are exceptions to needing that rule though.

If college is getting paid off as you go to school (no debt) then don't worry as much about it being perfect (as long as you're sure the money will keep coming.)

If you've gained knowledge about the major you're switching into outside of school (like from a job) and that caused you to be interested in that career field. You're probably more capable of making that decision than you think you are. Trust yourself if you've actually gained knowledge about the knew major.

If you're major switch barely changes any of your required courses then you don't have to be quite as sure while switching too. (If switching back would only require a couple other classes then it's hardly worth stressing about.) This works for switches between closely related majors.

If you're still struggling to decide whether or not to switch majors then try looking at yourself from an external perspective. If you saw a person like you planning to switch majors, would you bet on that person making a smart decision. Bear in mind, they screwed up once. Do you have any reason to believe this person is not screwing up again?

(If this person studied for hours about the new major in their free time, or if this person learned about the major from career experience, or if this person knows why they picked the wrong major in the first place, you can be sure they're more suited to make the decision now than they were before.)

Does that mean you should stay in a major you hate? Unless you're eerily close to getting the degree then I would still recommend getting out of your major. No... you don't have to quit school. Just take a leave of absence for a year or two. Get a few jobs. By playing around in the outside world you'll be much better suited to make the right major decision when you get back. As long as you make smart decisions you won't have any problem getting back into the school rhythm.

Are you tired of hearing the same boring old advice from everyone around you? Do you want to know how to study faster than ever? That's what this blog is all about. Be sure to check out the books and the archives for piles more o' awesome school hacks.

5 Lies Your Teachers Told You About College

Image Source

Yes. You know it just as well as I do. Your teachers lied to you. No... Don't start lighting your torches and grabbing your pitchforks yet. Most of the teachers lie about the prospects of college with good intentions but even if they didn't have good intentions, consider this:

A high school teacher CANNOT speak negatively about college and keep their job safe. Imagine the uproar of parents if a teacher told you all the information I'm about to tell you. That's not to say college is a negative but knowing what a teacher is not allowed to say can help you figure out where the whole story isn't being told and where you need to look out.

1. You Need College To Get A Good Job

This is one of the most egregious lies being told to high school students today. You do not need a college degree to get a good job. In fact, there are many jobs without a college degree that are easier to get and pay way more than some jobs that require college. They're just a different category of jobs.

Most teachers don't even realize how much they're lying when they say this. That's because they chose to go down the college path themselves and, of course, there are some major statistics that, on the surface, suggest they're right.

You might hear the statistics like, “people that go to college make an extra million dollars in their lifetime,” and assume that's because college gets you a better job. That's misguided though. College does not necessarily increase a persons salary just because there is a correlation. It's just as likely to say, people that will become successful are more likely to go to college.

To rephrase that, it's not necessarily that college makes people smart enough to get more money. It can also mean that people smart enough to make more money tend to go to college. That's a major difference. People are told the benefits of college their whole life. People with a good head on their shoulders are waay more likely to consider it. These people may be just as successful without it.

That being said, this lie could actually hold some truth if you rephrase it:

You need training to get a good job.

Training can come from college. It can also come from years of experience. There are tons of different ways to get the training required for a job. Don't narrow down your focus to exclude everything except college.

2. College Is An Investment

Image Source

Not understanding this point can cost you years of your life.

More of my friends than I like to think about are now suffering from the consequences of this mistake. College is not an investment by nature. It's just not. Education means very little economically and can cost you a fortune if you don't plan it out like an investment. It's only an investment if you treat it like an investment.

An investment is something that has a clear way to pay you a return on your investment in the future. School is not always that clear cut. You are not guaranteed a job just because you graduate college. You're not even guaranteed an interview. You need to look at the job market you're investing in before you actually spend tens of thousands of dollars on college.

This might be painful but it will be a whole lot less painful than paying down your student loans on a job you could have gotten without your degree. College is only an investment if you make it one. Otherwise, it's just a luxury.

3. It's Harder Than High School

Many high school teachers like to scare students into focusing on their work. Instead of actually providing their students a reason to learn the material, they tell their students that they're going to fail out of college if they don't learn to work hard now. That's the most common reason I've heard teachers make this lie but there are a few other reasons I've noticed.

Most people that graduate from college and spend time talking about it are just the kind of person to brag. While it's not every case, many people like to make a big deal out of things that aren't all that much of a challenge to make themselves feel better about it. Instead of trusting volunteered opinions about the challenges of college.

Ask people that have graduated and don't brag about it. Sometimes they'll tell you it's a little harder but you won't get the average scare story you get from most people that bring the subject up themselves.

Don't expect college to be much harder than high school unless you're heading into a super challenging degree (medical, etc.) or a super challenging college (MIT, etc.)

4. Go To School For What You Love!

Image Source

Yes. This is another unbelievably dangerous lie.

The average teacher that tells you this one is so confident in it that they're easy believe. Don't. Imagine how you'll feel 4 years after college when you need to pay off $30,000 worth of student loans with $10 an hour. My friends are doing it now. It's not fun.

College is not the time to learn what you love unless you have the money lying around to pay for it. As mentioned before, you need to treat it like an investment. That means you should be going for a degree that has a clear market for a job after graduation. By market, I do not mean a few teaching jobs. I mean jobs in just about anyplace you look.

You cannot count on being in the small minority of women's studies majors that get a teaching job after college. You might as well be going to the library and buying lottery tickets because the odds are stacked up against you.

Oftentimes, you can make a reasonable compromise with this kind of thing. If you want to go for some of those more fun sounding classes then do it while getting a degree with real potential for a job.

5. You Won't Go If You Don't Go Now

This is close to true. Most people that don't go to college right after high school, don't end up going to college ever. That is mostly related to the kind of person that usually doesn't go to college. Responsible people are more likely to go to college. The irresponsible people don't go to college. They end up living paycheck to paycheck, and maybe accidentally having a few kids. Eventually, they can't change their might.

Don't ignore another group though. What happens to the responsible people that don't go to college? Well... they don't limit their options in the future. Personally, I went to college 2 years after I graduated. Working for a few years was one of the best things I could have done. I learned more in those two years of working than I did in school. All around me at my minimum wage job, I saw people that I didn't want to be like. I saw them partying and doing drugs and I stayed responsible because I knew I didn't want to end up where they were.

If you're responsible then you don't have to go to college now. The only thing that can keep you from going back in the future is yourself.

Don't just take everything your teachers tell you as fact. They're just as human as anyone else with an opinion. Look at yourself logically and trust that you're capable of making the right decision for yourself.

Do you want to learn the secrets to studying faster than ever? Follow this blog and check out my books to learn more.