Posts tagged as:

study secrets

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 stop re-reading books in college

May 12, 2009

Hello fellow students

I have a special video for you today. It’s all about creating an academic database. I’ve used this method for years and it got me through graduate school and now allows me to write up and source an article in a fraction of the time.

I’ve been thinking about putting a post like this together even before I had the blog but I recently read a post at the cal newport blog on research wiki’s and thought it might be useful to show students a more simplified version of the same concept.

Endnote and how to use it

The program I use is endnote. If you’ve read the VTA Method you know I’m a real pusher for endnote as it allows any student to database any kind of academic material for easy referencing and implementation.  What endnote does is get all the demographic information about a source and then databases it for you.  It also automatically creates custom bibliographies which can be customized into any format you choose.

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How students can conquer their Susan Boyle Addictions

May 11, 2009

susan-boyle

So you know that paper is due tomorrow, but you’ve been watching Susan Boyle on youtube all afternoon and can’t seem to tear yourself away to actually get your work done.  Or you do pull yourself away for a few minutes then back to Boyle once you lose focus.  Well I have a special little program that will help end your Boyle addiction.

Leechblock is the ultimate Boyle killer; very simply, it enables you to restrain your web surfing through restricting certain websites.  By either restricting the amount of time you access the site each day or by restricting you from accessing the site completely.  I’ve tested many web surfing time management tools but have not come against anything as easy to use as leechblok.

How to Install Leechblock

Instillation is easy; here is what you are going to need.

- A copy of Mozilla Firefox

- A copy of the Leechblock add on

- 5 minutes

Go to www.firefox.com is you still don’t have a copy of Mozilla firefox.  Then go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476 to pick up a copy of the leechblock add on and download it, follow the instillation instructions (don’t worry you can check out the video below for a full tutorial).

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How Facebook is destroying your grades and the one thing that can save it

May 8, 2009

How Facebook is destroying your grades and the one

thing that can save it

Study secrets for stopping facebook addiction

Study secrets for stopping facebook addiction

While writing the virtual teaching assistant method I ran across quite a few students who had a real problem with facebook, myspace and twitter. A new study has found that students who use facebook get lower marks then those who don’t.

When I performed a time audits on students for the book, I found that they would check networking sites multiple times a day with some students literally spending HOURS electronically ‘socializing’ with their virtual friends.

A recent study found that facebook users had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5 whereas non-users had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0. Also non facebook users devoted 11-15 hours weekly to study whereas facebook users spend one to five.

There is an obvious correlation between facebook and academic success. The safe bet would be to delete your networking sites to preserve your mark. However, there is another important factor that you have to take into consideration. People who don’t use facebook are unpopular and usually dorks.

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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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