The National Flag of Quebec

In Canada “where I’m from” we have two official languages, French and English which was formally instituted into our national charter in 1982. This came into being to give the Quebecois people official language status and quell the rebellion of the Quebecois people which climaxed during the ‘October Crisis’ where Quebec was placed under martial law due to increased terrorist/freedom fighter activity. As a result almost all governmental positions within the country require that the employee learn both French and English and almost all citizens have a basic understanding of French and many are considered fully bilingual.
I’m talking about this to show you the context in which I’m coming from. Since I’m currently living in Montreal, most people speak French instead of English and I’ve grown up with both languages all my life. Everyone that I talk to can speak at least two languages and it isn’t rare to meet people who can speak three, four or even five languages which I find isn’t the case when I travel to the U.S. I recently had to take a government French exam to do some contract work and thought I would go through my sure fire, 5 step plan for learning a second language.

In my continuing series on basic college study tips I’m going to talk to you today about my favorite health tips for college students.  Many students have horrible health, ‘freshman 15 anybody?’  I’ve been relatively healthy throughout college due to the ability to keep myself accountable to basic health tips.  I’ve used the following tips throughout college to stay trim and healthy and they don’t require much work at all.

Sleep:

Follow a regulated circadian rhythm and get 8 hours of sleep per night.  This is a very simple college health tip, however crucially important in order to develop a healthy and academically successful college student.  So this means getting up and going to be at the same time EVERYDAY.  Therefore, if you’re going to bed on Saturdays at 3 in the morning and it can’t be avoided I’d suggest that you actually go to bed at 3 in the morning every night rather than go to bed early during the week and late on the weekends as this would damage your circadian rhythm.

In my continuing series on basic college study skills, today I’ve decided to discuss what I’m personally very good at, writing an A paper!

I’ve been a teaching assistant for almost 5 years and have literally marked thousands of papers.  In my experience I’ve seen the worst and best in paper writing and from the interviews I’ve done with successful students for my book, I’ve come to the conclusion that effective paper writing boils down to sticking to the fundamentals and proper planning. So here are the basic skills you are going to need to write an A paper quickly and effectively.

There are four major stages when writing an A paper; research, brainstorming, writing and editing.  Each stage should be disconnected from each other and should be given a specific start and end date.  Starting and finishing papers are crucial as you will either not get a paper started or get hung up on a particular step and have to hurry the entire process along.