From the category archives:

Academic Success

Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get a 4.0 GPA: Q and A

June 25, 2009

So I got a question from a student in my tutoring program and thought I’d share it with everybody else.  This guy was asking whether my book “Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get a 4.0 GPA” was just a tagline or whether it was possible.  He in essence wanted to call bullshit on the whole deal as he still hadn’t gotten to half an hour a day.  (He actually said that he was still studying an hour a day, but he had only started the program a month ago so in my opinion that is a pretty awesome as the estimated average study time to hold a 4.0 GPA’s is 3 hours a day… BUT ANYWAY).

There are really three big reasons why my program works allostasis, thought mechanization and online tutor outsourcing.  Each of which I’ll be happy to explain for everybody here.

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Johnny Can’t Fail Policy: Why University students are becoming stupider by the minute

June 18, 2009

Ok, fair warning, this is going to be a rant post.

This should be Johnny

This should be Johnny

I’ve just read an article by Joanne Laucius on a new education policy called the “Johnny can’t fail policies”.  Very simply, the policy gives high school students the opportunity to redo tests and assignments and receive ‘incompletes’ for missed work and plagiarism instead of a zero.  These policies as stated by the Ministry of Education have been implemented to increase student’s success, quoting studies that failing students or giving them zeros does not cause them to learn their lesson and succeed in the long run.  This is ridiculous.

Why this is Ridiculous

First off, without viewing the evidence of student achievement vs harsh marking for plagiarized and missed assignments I cannot specifically comment from a quantitative standpoint.  However, from a qualitative standpoint I can tell you that this ‘policy’ is absolute bullshit and will only produce low quality, academically unaccountable students.

The western education system has made a choice in terms of how we teach students.  We have decided to use standardized testing in order to categorize and stratify students.  This is a very good way to let people who are good at crossword puzzles and rote memorization to float to the top.  I personally think our system is bullshit but unfortunately I’m not a university dean or in charge of the board of education… yet.

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General Tips for Academic Success: Where’s the “ANY” Key?

June 15, 2009
D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

I’ve unfortunately committed one of the cardinal sins of critical thinking….

I can’t believe I haven’t addressed this earlier but unfortunately I sometimes don’t see the forest for the trees.

I got an email from a student today, she asked me for some ‘general tips for academic success’. I was just about to throw her an email saying “well, uhh… why don’t you just check out the ENTIRE BLOG, WEBSITE and BOOK!

But I then took a look around the blog and realized I haven’t actually given any of you the basic tips for academic success! I suppose I’ve always just thought that anyone who wanted that info should just check out the VTA Method and consult an online tutor. But I want this blog to be a resource for any student, not just ones that have bought my program (although it’s awesome).

So with that in mind I’m going to start a recurring series of the general tips for academic success. Here is what I’m planning on talking about:

General college study tips

Exam study tips

How to study for finals

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Academic Goals: If you want to succeed, keep your goals to yourself…

June 12, 2009

goal-comicSo I just got a link to a great article which you can find here about how to achieve goals.  In the VTA Method goals are the first step towards academic success.  All the online tutors that work here also make goals a major component when they tutor college students.

Whether you’ve read the VTA Method or not, I’m going to give you one of the greatest secrets behind the VTA Method now confirmed by a New York University study.

Goals should be kept to yourself

Results from a new study from New York University suggest that whatever your goal, keeping it to yourself is a better idea than broadcasting it to the world.  The article goes on to suggest that sharing our goals with others doesn’t necessarily motivate us to achieve.  In actuality, by talking to others about our goals and plans we start to feel a premature sense of completeness about our goals.

The VTA Method on Goals

This directly relates to what I discuss in the VTA Method when talking to others about academic goals and who to talk to them with.  I teach that when you begin to become a better student, it’s crucially important to NOT talk to others about it, especially those people who can’t hold you accountable for your goal.  The reasons why you shouldn’t share your goals seem a little counter-intuitive, but let’s take an example.

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Past Present and Future: Cementing Your Academic Mind Shift

June 5, 2009

Hello Fellow Students.

In researching for my online tutoring system, The VTA Method, I interviewed dozens of students and asked them how they became successful so successful in school.  The one thing they all had in common was their mind shift from thinking they knew they were going to succeed to knowing they were going to succeed.

Difference between Believing and Knowing you will succeed in University

Let me describe the distinction between believing and knowing.  Believing you’re going to succeed at something is when you don’t exactly know how you’re going to accomplish a goal but you have the faith that you will be able to achieve it.  This, in itself is a rare and highly successful way to think.  Many successful students and people have this mindset and have accomplished great things by implementing this kind of mind shift.

Knowing is a little different.  Knowing your going to succeed is having the same mindset that you will be able to achieve your goal BUT having a fully laid out plan to accomplish said goal.  So believing you’re going to succeed is having faith that you will be getting an A on a paper, knowing you’re going to succeed is having all the research, brainstorming and essay outlines completed and refined ready to be used to write an amazing paper.  You first need to believe before you know, and knowing requires quite a bit of testing and refinement, but once you know it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

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Top 10 Study Blogs: Where Students should begin for Academic Success

May 29, 2009

 

Hello Fellow StudentsOnline Tutoring program

So instead of writing out a large and long article about my 10 favorite study websites I have instead decided to do a video.  These are my top picks for academic success blogs.

P.S. I don’t actually think I’m number 1… yet J But I mean COMMON, its my blog right?  I’m not going to rank myself last!

 

10: http://www.debtfreescholar.com/

 

9: http://www.brokegradstudent.com/

 

8: http://www.survivingcollegelife.com/

 

7: http://studenthacks.org/

 

6: http://studysuccessful.com/

 

5: http://www.academicproductivity.com/

 

4: http://www.zencollegelife.com/

 

3: http://theuniversityblog.co.uk/

 

2: http://calnewport.com/blog/

 

1: http://virtualteachingassistant.com/blog/

 

 

Anybody have any suggestions as to other blogs I missed?  Please comment below.

 

As always please help me pay my billirini’s (yes that’s not a word, but again my blog so I can invent words) by visiting my main site:

 

Online Tutoring Program

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How to get into Med School In Europe

May 22, 2009

This guest post comes from Stefan from StudySuccessful.com, a site about successful studying!.

How to apply for med school in EuropeMed School applications

I’ve read many blogs about studying, and I ran into some posts about ‘applying for med school.’ The American people have to do strange things and are only focused on grades and extracurricular activities. In Europe, it’s just the same!

I’m a high school student in Holland, and I want to study Medicine next year. There are two ways to get there.

1.  Through a draw.

Every student who wants to study Medicine is registered and you have to get picked out of a big pile of ‘want to become med school students’. Sounds unfair, but it isn’t that unfair. The better your grades are, more chance you have to be drawn. And if your average grade is above an 8 (on a scale to 10) you are in there anyway. This means the Dutch are also focused on grades, the higher grades you have, more chance you have to join the education you want to do!

2. Through the ‘not central selection.’

This is a way besides the draw, and just for the ones who want to. Only a couple of universities work with this system.

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What it takes to be Talented: 10,000 hours and a little luck

May 15, 2009

Hello fellow students.  So after taking an incredibly long train ride I finally finished reading some Malcolm Gladwell and was particularly interested on what it takes to become talented.  So I thought I could share my insights with you.

Unfortunately for most of us, the news is a little depressing.

How to become Talented

Gladwell says there are in general two main components to becoming talented.  He states that to become a master at anything you must apply approximately 10,000 hours to it.  That means if you spent six hours a day on the violin each day every day, you’d become a master in a little under 5 years.  This is a depressing concept in itself but you didn’t even hear the worst part!

The Components of Talent

Becoming a master at something also requires a large amount of luck.  Having the right parents, being placed in the right school, reading the right books, hanging with the right crowd etc, all add to whether you will make that magical 10,000th hour and truly become a master at something.  A silver lining to all this is what makes masters different from regular people.  The making of a master is not necessarily natural talent but the ability to stay committed to a goal.

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How to study 30 minutes a day and get a 4.0 GPA

May 4, 2009

Hello and welcome to 30 minutes a day to a 4.0 GPA!

This is the first post of the virtual teaching assistant blog. I’ve put together a program (the VTA Method) which is going to help you get to a 4.0 GPA while only studying 30 minutes a day. This blog is going to serve as an update site for advanced study tips and methods for all, for free.  I’ll usually be trying to post one new article a week. I won’t be posting daily as I’m interested in producing quality content and quality requires time.

I’m a recent graduate from McGill University where I was finishing grad school specializing in sociology, social media and migration. I always struggled with school and didn’t really figure out the keys to success till later in my undergraduate degree and in graduate school. I became a teaching assistant during my undergraduate degree and grad school and figured out all the secrets that professors and teaching assistants don’t tell their students. During the five years I worked as a TA, I helped thousands of students through classes. I developed my knowledge into a tutoring service where students were paying me more than 100 dollars an hour to tutor them.

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