How to Get Good Grades in College

The Emerald Archer

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Apr 2, 2016
Messages
184
What up studs? Usually, when it comes to questions about college, the norm seems to be on how to make friends and get all the pretty girls (and who wouldn't want to know that hehe) but mine is on how to actually do well in school. Ya know like how to study for certain types of classes and ace all the tests, being organized, and utilizing your time as efficiently as possible. Another piece of the puzzle that may be holding me back are some negative beliefs about college.

Long story short, I started college in fall 2011 and chose the 5-year program (an extra year that included 3 semesters of co-ops). Well, here I am 5 years later and should have graduated this past spring, but because I fucked up my first few years I won't be graduating until spring 2018 (possibly Dec. 2017 but that's still way up in the air). I have to be honest, this whole journey of mine through college has really left me feeling defeated. Like, in a I screwed up my life in a major way type of feeling. I know it's all my fault and I accept that, and yet I still fall into my old patterns of waiting til the last minute to do hw and studying the day before the test, etc. I can't pinpoint if it is a result of negative beliefs that reinforce negative habits, or something else that I'm completely missing.

Are any of you guys able to shed some light on this life situation?
 

Inbocca

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
263
Location
United States
In my first year of college, I sat next to a woman in her mid-50s in my math class who didn't understand the course very well - and was very vocal about it. It seemed every day she had a dozen questions about something everyone else saw as really simple, and after a couple days, I got the feeling I should have picked a different seat. By the second week, the teacher and the woman approached me and offered me a proposition: if I spent my mornings tutoring the woman and helping her with her quizzes and homework (hybrid course so everything was online), neither of us would need to attend class. No boring math class and a free ride to campus every day, not to mention she paid for my expensive coffee habit most days? Win-win for sure. As I got to know the woman, I learned more about her history: she'd battled with drug addiction for most of her life, been in and out of prison, dealt with divorce from an abusive ex-husband who had beaten her and knocked her teeth out with a baseball bat, and her felon record made it almost impossible to get a job. She told me she wanted to be a social worker and was just starting to go to college in her 50s. Not only did we both get an A in that class, she graduated the next semester with her Associate's summa cum laude, went on to get her Bachelor's and Master's within the next 3 years, and just started her dream job making around $70,000/year - and she's still trying to move up.

This story makes it easy to see that all the screw-ups in the world don't matter when you've got a concrete goal and an ironclad will. It was hard work for sure; after she got her Bachelor's, she went to a counselor and was told she had a mathematical learning disability (her response was "no shit, where were you 2 years ago?"). Plenty of times she felt her course load was too much and she had to reach out to other people to get help. But she found a way and made it happen. Some of the things she always talked about and insisted upon were:

  • Set a strict standard for grades. She was never satisfied with anything less than an A. If she got a B, she was pissed. She did whatever it took to get that A, even arguing with the teacher when she knew she worked her ass off on something. There were times when the teacher didn't like her and wouldn't let her make anything up or graded her more harshly than she was okay with, but she was a pretty likable person and the teachers were willing to work with her 95% of the time. Never ever hurts to send the teacher an email, or preferably talk to them in person.
  • Never missed a class unless it was for a very good reason. If she had a doctor appointment or had to spend more time working on something for another class, she would make an exception; it would always be followed up with an email to the teacher or a classmate asking what notes she would need from that day's lecture or if she needed to make something up. She always knew important dates for exams and labs, and pretty much organized her schedule around school.
  • Joined an honors society/program. Not only did it make her CV/resume and her academic career look better, it surrounded her with people who were equally motivated for good grades. Plus, if your grades start slipping they kick you out, and she couldn't stand the thought of that. Not all campuses have a free honors society (the one at the university I'm going to go to costs like an extra $700/semester and has separate housing and everything, probably not gonna do that), but if they do it's definitely worth it.
  • Paid attention to ways she could decrease her costs. I'm pretty sure she was unemployed for the first semester I knew her and got a part-time job on campus in the second semester before she graduated. She pretty much lived off of credit cards until she got the job she has now, so she was always looking for scholarships and grants that she could apply for and wrote essays for them whenever she had time. She avoided student loans like the plague, which is an example I wish I had followed. A couple hours writing an essay is worth it if you can knock a few thousand dollars off of tuition (for those of you in the EU, be thankful your governments actually care about public education - that few thousand dollars barely puts a dent in the total here). Another note: maybe avoid on-campus housing. It's good for logistics if you're gaming on college girls, but it's less quality for more money and an apartment near campus might be more bang for your buck (pun intended).
  • Asked for help. I wasn't the only person helping her with her classes. Sometimes it's pride, sometimes it's genuinely thinking you don't need it, but a lot of people just don't ask for help when this is one of the easiest ways to get something done. Maybe you don't have time to get an assignment done or you just don't get it. Ask the smart guy in class if he'd be willing to share his notes or show you how to do something, or even do it for you. Offer them a good or service in exchange if you want. If someone gave me a ride and a coffee every day for the rest of the semester, I'd happily do their homework assignments if it's only gonna take me 10-15 minutes.

I'm using her example over one of my own because I'm hardly an example of success in this field. I'm kind of in the same boat as you now: told myself I was going to turn things around, but I've lost count of how many classes I've skipped (for dumb reasons too) and I miss deadlines like crazy. So hopefully we can figure this out together :)

I don't know if negative beliefs are all of it, but it sounds like you've avoided at least part of the victim mentality by accepting responsibility for what's happened. That being said, there seems to be a lack of effort to fix the behaviors that got you into that mess to begin with. Maybe you feel there's no point in changing now since you're so far gone, or maybe your defeatism is comfortable and you don't want to risk being successful because it would mean a major change to your routine. I could tell you that your academic success isn't a direct reflection on your abilities as a person, and plenty of individuals are successful without degrees... but I don't want to say that because you've already come so far and you deserve to graduate. Make school your #1 priority (besides keeping your belly full and a roof over your head), plan everything else around that, find a good environment to study in (home isn't always the best place if you're prone to distractions), if you have extra time try to get some future assignments done so you don't have to do them later.

It could also be maybe you were smarter than most other people in your primary and secondary school, and it took you less time to do the work so you got in the habit of putting it off to the last minute and still skating by. If you can make that work in college, by all means, keep doing it; just get good at gauging how much time you'll need to study and do homework.

And if you feel like a fuck-up, remember the story above. You're not too far gone, it's never too late, and (maybe most importantly) that feeling is just reinforcing a lack of action on your part. Think like a scholar, and you'll be a scholar. Think like a drop-out, and, well...

Best of luck.
 

PrettyDecent

Tribal Elder
Tribal Elder
Joined
Mar 2, 2013
Messages
876
BBeyond,

I didn't go to college, but I did get 5's on my AP exams and had a 4.0 GPA. I think my advice will still be valid.

The most effective learning strategies I had were

1.) Read the material, take notes on the material in your own words (I'd usually have 20 pages of handwritten notes for each chapter), then make notecards for all the vocabulary words and their definitions. Test yourself with the notecards regularly.

2.) Independent research on the topics - this makes the coursework interesting, which makes it easier to learn. Also, since you have a better understanding of the topic, you're more likely to remember the right answers. Or at least figure them out based on the additional facts you know.

Nick
 

The Emerald Archer

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Apr 2, 2016
Messages
184
Inbocca said:
In my first year of college, I sat next to a woman in her mid-50s in my math class who didn't understand the course very well - and was very vocal about it. It seemed every day she had a dozen questions about something everyone else saw as really simple, and after a couple days, I got the feeling I should have picked a different seat. By the second week, the teacher and the woman approached me and offered me a proposition: if I spent my mornings tutoring the woman and helping her with her quizzes and homework (hybrid course so everything was online), neither of us would need to attend class. No boring math class and a free ride to campus every day, not to mention she paid for my expensive coffee habit most days? Win-win for sure. As I got to know the woman, I learned more about her history: she'd battled with drug addiction for most of her life, been in and out of prison, dealt with divorce from an abusive ex-husband who had beaten her and knocked her teeth out with a baseball bat, and her felon record made it almost impossible to get a job. She told me she wanted to be a social worker and was just starting to go to college in her 50s. Not only did we both get an A in that class, she graduated the next semester with her Associate's summa cum laude, went on to get her Bachelor's and Master's within the next 3 years, and just started her dream job making around $70,000/year - and she's still trying to move up.

This story makes it easy to see that all the screw-ups in the world don't matter when you've got a concrete goal and an ironclad will. It was hard work for sure; after she got her Bachelor's, she went to a counselor and was told she had a mathematical learning disability (her response was "no shit, where were you 2 years ago?"). Plenty of times she felt her course load was too much and she had to reach out to other people to get help. But she found a way and made it happen. Some of the things she always talked about and insisted upon were:

  • Set a strict standard for grades. She was never satisfied with anything less than an A. If she got a B, she was pissed. She did whatever it took to get that A, even arguing with the teacher when she knew she worked her ass off on something. There were times when the teacher didn't like her and wouldn't let her make anything up or graded her more harshly than she was okay with, but she was a pretty likable person and the teachers were willing to work with her 95% of the time. Never ever hurts to send the teacher an email, or preferably talk to them in person.
  • Never missed a class unless it was for a very good reason. If she had a doctor appointment or had to spend more time working on something for another class, she would make an exception; it would always be followed up with an email to the teacher or a classmate asking what notes she would need from that day's lecture or if she needed to make something up. She always knew important dates for exams and labs, and pretty much organized her schedule around school.
  • Joined an honors society/program. Not only did it make her CV/resume and her academic career look better, it surrounded her with people who were equally motivated for good grades. Plus, if your grades start slipping they kick you out, and she couldn't stand the thought of that. Not all campuses have a free honors society (the one at the university I'm going to go to costs like an extra $700/semester and has separate housing and everything, probably not gonna do that), but if they do it's definitely worth it.
  • Paid attention to ways she could decrease her costs. I'm pretty sure she was unemployed for the first semester I knew her and got a part-time job on campus in the second semester before she graduated. She pretty much lived off of credit cards until she got the job she has now, so she was always looking for scholarships and grants that she could apply for and wrote essays for them whenever she had time. She avoided student loans like the plague, which is an example I wish I had followed. A couple hours writing an essay is worth it if you can knock a few thousand dollars off of tuition (for those of you in the EU, be thankful your governments actually care about public education - that few thousand dollars barely puts a dent in the total here). Another note: maybe avoid on-campus housing. It's good for logistics if you're gaming on college girls, but it's less quality for more money and an apartment near campus might be more bang for your buck (pun intended).
  • Asked for help. I wasn't the only person helping her with her classes. Sometimes it's pride, sometimes it's genuinely thinking you don't need it, but a lot of people just don't ask for help when this is one of the easiest ways to get something done. Maybe you don't have time to get an assignment done or you just don't get it. Ask the smart guy in class if he'd be willing to share his notes or show you how to do something, or even do it for you. Offer them a good or service in exchange if you want. If someone gave me a ride and a coffee every day for the rest of the semester, I'd happily do their homework assignments if it's only gonna take me 10-15 minutes.

I'm using her example over one of my own because I'm hardly an example of success in this field. I'm kind of in the same boat as you now: told myself I was going to turn things around, but I've lost count of how many classes I've skipped (for dumb reasons too) and I miss deadlines like crazy. So hopefully we can figure this out together :)

I don't know if negative beliefs are all of it, but it sounds like you've avoided at least part of the victim mentality by accepting responsibility for what's happened. That being said, there seems to be a lack of effort to fix the behaviors that got you into that mess to begin with. Maybe you feel there's no point in changing now since you're so far gone, or maybe your defeatism is comfortable and you don't want to risk being successful because it would mean a major change to your routine. I could tell you that your academic success isn't a direct reflection on your abilities as a person, and plenty of individuals are successful without degrees... but I don't want to say that because you've already come so far and you deserve to graduate. Make school your #1 priority (besides keeping your belly full and a roof over your head), plan everything else around that, find a good environment to study in (home isn't always the best place if you're prone to distractions), if you have extra time try to get some future assignments done so you don't have to do them later.

It could also be maybe you were smarter than most other people in your primary and secondary school, and it took you less time to do the work so you got in the habit of putting it off to the last minute and still skating by. If you can make that work in college, by all means, keep doing it; just get good at gauging how much time you'll need to study and do homework.

And if you feel like a fuck-up, remember the story above. You're not too far gone, it's never too late, and (maybe most importantly) that feeling is just reinforcing a lack of action on your part. Think like a scholar, and you'll be a scholar. Think like a drop-out, and, well...

Best of luck.

Inbocca,

That is one hell of an inspirational story, thanks for sharing! You're definitely right, I think a big part of it is that I've seen myself as "too cool for school" and that by changing my habits and routines to mimic that of a scholar would mean an identity shift of sorts. I think subconsciously this has always been the case, combined with a bit of perfectionism in that since I didn't stay on track with my curriculum and let my GPA slip, it led to a feeling of permanence with no do-over which most likely led to enforcing a negative mindset surrounding school.

It's been a bit over a month since I posted this question and, although I've managed to turn some things around, I realized that lack of planning/scheduling (which then causes procrastination) seem to be my biggest issues. I have also noticed that even if I decide to study in advance or attempt to get an early start on assignments, my execution and follow-through is not so great. It's like I can't get motivated unless I absolutely have to because the test is the next day or the assignment is due at midnight, even though I logically know that spreading tasks over a period of time is the most efficient method. Have you or anyone you know struggled with the execution side of things?

@ Marcellus,

Thanks for the article reference bud, I've read that before and now have it printed out. Looks like I need to actually implement the ideas in the article as opposed to just "knowing" the concepts.

@ PrettyDecent,

5's on your AP exams and a 4.0 GPA!? That's impressive bro and kinda shocking you didn't go to college since you seem like the ideal candidate, but to each his own. Those are some good tips and I've used the note cards for definitions before, but I'm passed all of my gen. eds. and no longer taking any humanities courses just strictly engineering/technical courses. The independent research for coursework is dynamite and I've engaged in some before, but it was never consistent enough. Ever since taking the "red pill" I've felt that my only objective with school now is to pass my classes with decent grades and as minimal time possible, since the most valuable aspects of college is not the coursework but rather all of the various opportunities presented to a student in that type of environment.
 

Inbocca

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
263
Location
United States
That is one hell of an inspirational story, thanks for sharing! You're definitely right, I think a big part of it is that I've seen myself as "too cool for school" and that by changing my habits and routines to mimic that of a scholar would mean an identity shift of sorts. I think subconsciously this has always been the case, combined with a bit of perfectionism in that since I didn't stay on track with my curriculum and let my GPA slip, it led to a feeling of permanence with no do-over which most likely led to enforcing a negative mindset surrounding school.

It's been a bit over a month since I posted this question and, although I've managed to turn some things around, I realized that lack of planning/scheduling (which then causes procrastination) seem to be my biggest issues. I have also noticed that even if I decide to study in advance or attempt to get an early start on assignments, my execution and follow-through is not so great. It's like I can't get motivated unless I absolutely have to because the test is the next day or the assignment is due at midnight, even though I logically know that spreading tasks over a period of time is the most efficient method. Have you or anyone you know struggled with the execution side of things?

Glad to hear you've made progress! As Chase mentioned in classic right-on-point fashion, perfectionism is one of the roots of procrastination. If it can't be perfect, might as well put it off until it can be or else you risk making an inferior product.

I'm most definitely guilty of that execution issue you mentioned. Sometimes I'll even schedule time to work on homework or assignments and either forget to start or get distracted doing something else and never do it. It's like I know everything will work out so why bother? Horrible mentality, I know, but I rarely do things before I absolutely have to and it almost always works out for me in the end - just barely, though.

I think the key is to start a new habit. Just like procrastinating became a habit long ago, not procrastinating can become a new habit. The tricky part is sticking to it once you get rolling. In theory, it's supposed to get easier and easier the more you commit to it. But continuing to commit is the hard part. One thing that might help is getting a study buddy or a study group - unless you're all easily distracted, you might be able to keep each other focused and get the work done faster together.

Best of luck, man. Only another month left before break!
 

The Emerald Archer

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Apr 2, 2016
Messages
184
Inbocca,

True that about perfectionism being the root cause of procrastination. I'm glad you mentioned that because upon reflecting on my school years and study habits, I've realized that my perfectionism is what caused most of my issues in school. I would read about how college is more than just studying and getting good grades, and that to reap the various opportunities in college it's best to become razor efficient with your time so that you can free up time to joining clubs/organizations, joining/creating new social circles, banging girls, and not to mention starting a side hustle or something like that. I believed (and still believe) that these are the real value/benefits of being in college and not what you learn in class. Thus, I put a lot of pressure on myself to live up to this carefully structured lifestyle that had me getting good grades with minimal time/effort, so that I could then utilize the rest of my time to having a vivid and exciting social life, banging lots of attractive girls, and working on skills to help me become an entrepreneur/freelancer.

Therefore, when I'm spending a lot of time and effort on school I feel like I'm missing out on all these opportunities and then sacrifice school a little bit (out of fear of missing out) to indulge in these opportunities. But I then feel the guilt and burden of having all these assignments/tests/projects over my head and find that I can't be fully in the present when out socializing and meeting girls, because I keep feeling the stress of school hanging over my head. Anyways Inbocca, not to burden you with this life problem, but I hope this gives you some insight into how my mindset towards college has led to where I am now with school performance and insecurity and why I originally asked this question.

Basically my cycle has been go to college and do well in school, but don't spend all of your time studying so that you can take advantage of the real value in college which is socializing/getting connected with peers, professors, professionals in field of study, etc and banging lots of girls so that I don't feel like I missed out and join the "college years wasted" club, which seems to be prevalent throughout the manosphere and seduction/self-help industry. However, I end up sacrificing school somewhat during the process due to poor discipline, motivation, procrastination, etc and this leads to fear and uncertainty about my future, as well as a social stigma for not doing tool well/taking too long to get my undergrad degree.

All of what I just described has been the burden on my shoulders the last 5 years, and the reason for the lack of motivation on my part is because I have long ago decided that I want to be an entrepreneur and not work a 9-5 for someone else. Therefore, I feel (or felt) like I'm going to college for the wrong reasons and due to social/family pressure when really it won't be taking me closer towards my goal of location independence e-ship. Didn't mean for this response to go into the detail it has lol but fuck it, I appreciate your feedback and contribution towards helping me through this dilemma.
 
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