Friday: Find a good reason to volunteer

Now, let me try to brave through the risk of sounding unbearably corny, and talk about how finding a good reason to volunteer will help you in school.

When I say help you in school, I do not mean the credits you may get, or how it looks on you resume. Although, I do know people who have joined various clubs that specialize in community service solely for the credits, and by the end of the year, they are just as caring, and involved in the group as everybody else. I mean that it will help you meet people with good intentions, as well as teach you lessons you will never be able to learn inside the classroom.

The extent of volunteering does not essentially matter, as long as it is something that helps the community in some way. Whether it is selling flowers for Mother’s Day to raise profit for Nepal relief, or even something as simple as a local clean up of the park. Overtime, you will find that it feels good to give back to the community, and eventually your reasoning for volunteering will be intrinsic, rather than just stacking up the volunteer hours.

Overall, I can say that I still find ways to volunteer when I can though my school. I do it because it feels good to know that there are people around who still care, and aren’t to caught up in their daily lives to give something back.

https://students.ucsd.edu/student-life/involvement/community/reasons.html 

Thursday: Grades aren’t the be-all-end-all of the world

I still remember when I was a young and impressionable boy at the age of sixteen, just beginning my grade 11 year, and all I cared about were my grades as apposed to what I actually learned. Could you really blame me though? I lived in an environment that promoted education as apposed to learning. Where getting into a good university is the only thing that mattered, and not how much knowledge I gained.

Now, you may argue that learning is equivalent to obtaining a good grade. While this certainly may be true in some cases, I regret to say that in most of my experiences- personally, as well as with my friends and acquaintances, that it has not been. Instead, most of the time in my early years in high school whenever I obtained a relatively decent grade on a test, I could not remember much of anything after a week, or even a few months later.

I then confronted my Physics teacher about my problem, and ever since, I have never thought about my grades the same way. He told me that essentially, I shouldn’t be stressing about my grades so much, as apposed to the knowledge I am actually taking away from the courses.

It is truly unfortunate that most students fall into the trap of memorizing information, and then spitting out when the day of the test comes. Because when I think about going to school as having the opportunity to learn, and gain free knowledge, I find that I am much more successful than when I am constantly worried about what grade I get. However, in a world where university acceptance is the primary path to getting a well paying job, the students cannot be blamed in anyway

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-schuhmacher/why-grades-dont-really-ma_b_2682922.html

Wednesday: Know How to Study

In my many experiences throughout high school I learned that knowing how to study is just, if not more important than actually studying. In this instance the infamous quote- “work smart not hard” is a little relevant, only a little, because in any case you should ideally be working smart and hard.

Disclaimer***

For those of you who can cruise through three units in a single night, and still ace an exam, I’d advise you to stop reading. Unless of course, it is solely to laugh at the expense of everybody (including me) who actually need to form better study habits in order to absorb information and learn something.

I shamelessly confess to being one of those kids who signs up for all of the honors classes he can, only to struggle through most of them. However, part way through these classes I learned something that later on, helped me go from nearly failing tests during the beginning of the year, to ending with straight A’s in all of my classes.

Very Useful Link: 

http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/10/03/the-art-of-stealth-studying-how-to-earn-a-40-with-only-10-hours-of-work/

Essentials to knowing how to study:

1.     Look over notes in small increments of time everyday after classes

2.     Pick and choose the appropriate questions from the homework assigned

3.     Do all the hardest questions from the unit before your test

As I learned these 3 things, especially while struggling through AP chemistry I realized that it wasn’t nearly as hard as I was making it out to be. And overall, it was really only me who was making the experience bad by procrastinating.

Tuesday: Network, Network, Network!

In the current day & age where everybody you meet appears to have a sort of bachelor’s degree or some type of vague MBA from a school you’ve never heard of; I think that it is safe to infer that the job market is-over saturated, and competition is at an all-time high, especially for graduate students fresh out of school.

Going into an interview, you become aware that there may well be a hundred other applicants who have similar or superior qualifications compared to yours.

While this is deeply saddening for me, as well as the many students currently studying their rear-end’s –for lack of a better word- off just to obtain a degree, in hopes that it will secure us a nice job in the future, chances are that despite all the hard work, it most probably wont.

In these trying times, it all seems to trickle down to whom you know in the world, as much as who knows you. So ultimately, we students are left with the revelation that the best way to get ahead in the world is to network and meet new people. The importance of networking has spiked drastically when it comes to attaining a job in the real world.

Honestly, I am glad to have realized-at a relatively early age-that the way you present yourself in front of people actually matters. Connections are a wonderful thing, and can be made through people, who know people, who know people and so on.

I urge you to get out, attend seminars or workshops or even lectures. Talk to as many people as you can. Impress those people. It is worth the time and effort knowing that the combination of the appropriate qualifications, along with impressing the right people will put you miles ahead of the masses.

I leave you with this wonderful quote about networking from Dale Carnegie (I swear I actually know who he is) who said that- “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/30/5-facts-about-todays-college-graduates/ 

Monday: Having a goal in mind makes waking up in the morning a little easier

God knows, waking up in the morning for school and making it on time for class already proves extremely difficult for most students. Your body is accustomed to the familiar ring of the alarm, but all that means is that you instinctively flail your arm around in desperate search for the “snooze” button.  

Now if you are anything like I was not so long ago, and you finally wake up after incessantly hitting snooze for the billionth time, you would look at the clock you think- “oh shi#$ its already six-thirty?” - and proceed to scramble your way out of bed.

To all those people who are able to sympathize with me, I say this: find something in your life that is truly worth waking up for! Please don’t take this the wrong way. By no means am I trying to say that everyone who is currently sleeping past the alarm clock has nothing in his or her lives worth waking up for. I am merely trying to help some people who suffer from a chronic lack-of-making-morning-classes.

It got to a point in my life where I was regularly sleeping in, and missing the first two of my A.M. classes as a result. Subsequently, I realized that there is no way that this could possibly be sustainable (not to mention sitting down and having a long, painful talk with my parents and guidance counselor).

This might sound cheesy, but having a long-term goal (honestly anything works whether it’s relational, academic, or financial related) really motivated me. And as a result, I am now always up in the wee hours of the morning, most of the time even before the alarm goes off. Remember, the early bird catches the worm!

http://www.fitbrains.com/blog/wakeup-brain-tips/