From the category archives:

Academic Success

The Ultimate College Study Space: How To Create Study Tranquility

March 25, 2010

I have spoken about college study spaces vs social spaces at length throughout this blog and with my online tutoring program. I think finding a solid study space is probably the best thing any student can do to focus their study methodology and get ahead of the daily workload college demands. With that in mind here is a quick review of the fundamentals of college study spaces.

Location, location, location

The same thing they say about real-estate is true in college study spaces, location is EVERYTHING! I’ve had a few great study spaces throughout my undergrad and graduate degrees which have served me very well, all those places had excellent location in common. Here are the fundamental things I look for:

  • Ideally you should be more than 10 minutes away from a social space. This is important because you don’t want to tempt yourself with a visit to a friends place or a beer that’s only 5 minutes away.
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How to be a responsible gamer, while not neglecting your studies.

February 2, 2010

So my brother has opened up a new blog called psone classics. He’s written up a little article on responsible gaming in university. Please check out the post and take a look at the blog.

Video games are a great way to entertain yourself, they’re relatively cheap, engaging, and if you have friends that play as well, they can even be social. But sadly there is a dark side to gaming, and many of us have seen friends slowly disappear to the cave of their dorm rooms with a computer loaded with World of Warcraft, boxes full of energy drinks, with friends and homework forbidden inside.

This is a sad thing, seeing your friends disappear into that world, where nothing else matters but that next item they’ve been working towards, or that boss they need to slay before they can sleep for the night. It’s really tragic to see this take hold on a friend of yours, but even worse when you become that cave dwelling Red Bull guzzling potato.

How can you avoid this gruesome fate?

This list will help.

(I mean, if you don’t stay in school and get a good job, where will your gaming budget go? Down that’s where.)

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Why Killing College Procrastination Is A Team Sport: Overcoming Procrastination

December 31, 2009
Students of Nan Hua High School gathering in t...
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve spoken at length about procrastination in previous posts however I had a recent conversation with a student who got me thinking about a new aspect of procrastination and how to conquer it. My student started out with a B- average and went to an A- average in a single semester based on what I’m going to share with you today.

But first a little history…

Historically I had always attacked procrastination the way most people do. I’d keep telling myself to ‘get shit done’ and when I didn’t get said shit done I would wonder why I wasn’t capable of getting said shit done. This followed me for years and years. I’ve also spoken to hundreds of students about this particular issue. I’ve also found a solution that works for me and most of my students but it’s more complex than you think. You see ‘and this will be difficult for quite a few of you’ I’m going to share with you a cold hard truth that very few students realize but nonetheless is central to your overall productivity and long term success.

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Happy Holidays Everybody

December 23, 2009
A youth enjoying his pudding on a firm's Chris...
Image via Wikipedia

Hello fellow students

As the holiday season is quickly approaching I wanted to extend my warmest holiday wishes to everyone that has been supporting us over the last 6 months and I’d also like to provide everyone with an update on my little company, how it’s progressing and what other education programs I’m putting together in the new year.

Virtual Teaching Assistants Progress Thus Far

As of today, I’ve gotten dozens of students, hundreds of emails and 12 employees. Our students have done very well, some students have gone from failing classes to passing those same classes in a matter of weeks. Others have gone from B’s and C’s to A’s in the same amount of time. Also, we’ve had zero refunds which is really a testament to my virtual teaching assistants and their commitment to help students achieve academic success.

Challenges Virtual Teaching Assistant Method Has Faced

We’ve also had quite a few challenges, we currently updated to a completely new shopping cart system, I went through a lot of trial and error with pay per click adverting until figuring it out and I’ve been putting way too much work into my little company while it expands.

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Learn More Study Less, Second Edition

October 30, 2009
First look at Learn More Study Less 2nd Ed

First look at Learn More Study Less 2nd Ed

Hello fellow students, I’m excited to finally talk to everybody about a new project Scott H Young and I have been working on for the past few months and are now ready to debut to the world. Off the massive popularity of Learn More Study Less first edition, we are both happy to announce a second edition of the book which is packed with even more great content than the first edition. Here are some of the big changes we’ve made to the second edition.

A two and a half hour Video Course

We’ve added a full video course with me ‘Liam McIvor Martin’ and Scott H Young where I ask Scott the questions everyone has wanted to ask him since LMSL 1st edition came out. He explains all his concepts from LMSL 1st edition and expands on some new concepts that will really revolutionize your learning style.

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How To Prepare Yourself for the September College semester

August 13, 2009
Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Hello Fellow Students!

The new semester is quickly approaching and I have gotten an email from a student who has asked me for some advice on preparation for the new semester.  I wrote him a pretty in depth email and thought I’d just repost it here.  Enjoy!

There are in my opinion four fundamental things you must prepare yourself for to be not just a successful student but a successful university participant.

Prepare a strong study skills plan

Get a plan on how to achieve college success and analyze it.  The best laid plans are sometimes doomed to failure from the start if you don’t analyze your plan for weak points and shore them up.  As a perfect example if you plan on studying 4 hours a day, is that realistic when you only studied 4 hours a week last year?  How are you going to stay accountable to your new plan? (hint hire a tutor, which this student already did)  What are the consequences when you don’t meet your study plan?

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Michelle Obama: The Future of Education for Women

August 6, 2009
Michelle as a teenager

Michelle as a teenager

Hello Fellow Students

I recently watched the Ted Talk with Michelle Obama who was speaking about the future of education for women.  The part of the speech that impacted me the most which I believe transcends sex is her description of her study habits.

She quote “never cut class” and “liked getting A’s” and thought that “being smart was cooler than anything in the world.”  What an interesting concept!

Now even though my book is called “Study 30 Minutes A Day and Get A 4.0 GPA” I’m still a proponent of Michelle’s standpoint of education.  I get a LOT of flack from people who don’t agree with the title of the book.  But, once I explain to them that I teach students learning techniques rather than studying techniques and that I suggest to my students to take a class they might fail to expand their learning, they usually understand.

Learning and effective study skills is in my opinion the most important skill you can teach students, unfortunately many of the students I encounter lack the basic study skills necessary to think critically, or even think regularly lol.

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How Western Students Can Still Compete In Our Globalized Economy

July 30, 2009

educationHello fellow students.

As a tutor for university students I usually get hired not by unintelligent students or even lazy students but students that want to get ahead and truly compete in the increasingly competitive global economy.

I’d like to give you a few awe inspiring student statistics:

“Statistics indicate that the number of university students in China has increased rapidly in recent years, from 1.08 million in 1998 to over 17 million in 2003.” Asia Times

“The India Science Report, for instance, shows that India had a total of 48.7 million graduates in 2004, up sharply from 20.5 million in 1991. And while just around 29 per cent of those enrolled for graduate courses went in for science in 1995-96, this is now up to 35 per cent.” Rediff News

15.6 million students are enrolled in post secondary education within the United States in 2009 an increase of over 2 million from 2000 which saw 13.2 million students registered.  National Center for Education Statistics (Figure 10.2) with 2.2 million graduate students (Figure 11.1)

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What happens when you plagiarize in College

July 9, 2009

PlagarismI came across a wonderful little website ‘flashpapers,’ I would link to it in the post but I don’t want to be connected with them in any way.  This website claims it will give you a fully customized paper just in time for finals!

I’m sure this is an expanding market, where teams of highly educated outsourced third world employee’s labour away to give Johnny or Lucy a paper just in time for finals.  But, the risk of being charged with plagiarism or academic fraud far outweighs the gains.  I’ve been offered extravagant amounts of money to write papers and pass students as a teaching assistant and lecturer.  In my college tutoring business I’ve also been offered money from my own students to just ’solve their paper problem’.  Each time I’ve refused, first because it is fundamentally wrong and second because of the possible ramifications.

What happens when you are caught cheating

Although I’m sure most university students all get that flyer at the beginning of the semester outlining what plagiarism is and why it’s wrong, the majority of students don’t actually know what happens to you if you are caught plagiarizing.  I’ll start by defining how plagiarism is confirmed.  Other than using software which can scan papers for plagiarized content which is illegal in some schools, there are three steps.

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Partial Attention Disorder

July 2, 2009

multitaskingYou’ve probably heard of Attention Deficit Disorder

Well I think many students have another condition that is wider spread and worse than ADD.

Are you ready for this one?

Partial Attention Disorder

In my 5 years as a teaching assistant and university tutor I’ve seen all manner of study problems.  From over studying and writing more notes than the text book has pages to notes written on napkins!

However, in my work the most common mistake I see in students study skills is a lack of adequate concentration on a single task, otherwise known as the dreaded multitasking monster or what I lovingly call ‘partial attention disorder’

Why is PPA so pervasive?

The main reason why PPA is so pervasive is because many students see multitasking as an advantage.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  For some reason, society sees the ability to perform multiple tasks badly an advantage over performing a single task properly.  If you check out Tim Ferriss’ blog he has an excellent post on multitasking and shows that ‘multitaskers’ get less accomplished than pot smokers… I’m not kidding!  I’m not condoning pot smoking as a study tool but this should show you how horrible multitasking can effect your concentration.

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