The world wide web is not short of pages listing 10 attributes of top students (to be evidenced in studies); one website even advertises 40 of these. I would narrow the list to ambition, meaning, the desire and determination to achieve success; the ability to synthesize, that is, combine information and knowledge from several disciplines; and humility, viz., recognizing that there is always more to learn. (The specific ways to study will vary based on individual characteristics and circumstances, the discipline being studied, and the level of education: this said, critical thinking should underpin all.)
What is the best way to study as a University student who wants to make top grades?
Following can be considered:
Try to understand all the courses' syllabus - assemble your own big picture / mind map.
Project manage your study - work backward from graduation / final exam to daily homework & revision (if never learn project management - can Google search from Internet)
Preview chapter(s) before the lecture starts - hi-light areas you don't understand.
Ask questions to understand what you don't know during lectures.
Work hard & work smart.
Differentiate what are concepts & what are applications / use cases - apply what you'd learned (this can be handy during certain exam or industrial training).
Work with other students in a team & display proactivity, team work & leadership.
This is an important question. Unfortunately, lots of emphasis is put on grades in judging the qualifications of a student, which sweeps aside the subtler features (e.g., language and writing skills, discernment and quantitative skills) of a student that make a student superior in cases where the largely hidden features have high amplitudes.
More to the point, it is well-known that a student who sits in a front row during a lecture is more apt to earn high marks on exams. There is a very simple, but perhaps not so obvious, reason for this front-row seat phenomenon.
Front-row seat phenomenon. A student who sits in a front row seat during a lecture is more likely to connect with what is being said or what is being written on a chalk board.
University education should be considered as a house which you built. It is obvious that the better the foundation of this house, the more reliable and durable it is for the future life, the longevity and well being of this house. That's where the focus should be.
Top grades are in some cases a partial reflection of one’s ability to understand concepts, theories, formulas and their use as demonstrated in a test or various forms of assessments. In other words, one’s ability to demonstrate a grasp of course contents may correspond to the grades. However, grades as an outcome of actual learning is something different from grades that are just the result reproducing ideas onto test sheets.
In most subjects a demonstration of critical thinking and creativity are part of the assessment process. There are no hard and fast rules to getting better grades. An important question is: are grades the reason for studying or is the debate about actual learning ? It seems to me that it is the latter. This is because some people are very excellent test takers but are hardly able to think outside the box.
1) To make top grades one needs to have time for what is being studied and to grasp the contents in depth.
2) It has nothing to do with the old way of memorizing and regurgitating, taking a test, passing and forgetting everything immediately. It’s a waste of time.
3) One also needs to be able to connect what is being learnt to real life so that theories and concepts are not just disconnected ideas from real life phenomena. That is, is a good grade in some useless book of lies is worth anything without critical thinking that questions the writers, content and course objectives?
If someone has a B or C whilst working/having an actual practical experience and studying at the same time, I will go with that as a predictor of potential success in life. Please see Carter G. Woodson for his book on the miseducation of the Negro.
4) Different universities have different ways of evaluating different courses; classroom participation, group work, field work, lab work, individual diaries etc. or a combination of these and tests in one assessment. This is mostly the Scandinavian model. Here you actually learn something that you can use and that relies less on memorization of things. The emphasis is put on the training of the individual to become an independent thinker. Top grades, yes, but better learning a priority.
The most important thing is to learn, for this it is necessary to achieve cognitive independence, to study in an active and independent way and to develop the capacity to learn.
A very nice questions. However, a universiti should not be seen as where to go and get top grades. As mentioned by Prof James F Peters, certain things should be considered such as writing skills, communication skills and others.
Hello, I'm going to tell you how to study effectively:
1. Learn the same information in a variety of ways.
The research (Willis, J. 2008) shows that different media stimulate different parts of the brain. The more areas of the brain that are activated, the more likely it is that you’ll understand and retain the information.
So to learn a specific topic, you could do the following:
Read the class notes
Read the textbook
Watch a Khan Academy video
Look up other online resources
Create a mind map
Teach someone what you’ve learned
Do practice problems from a variety of sources
Of course, you won’t be able to do all of these things in one sitting. But each time you review the topic, use a different resource or method – you’ll learn faster this way.
2. Study multiple subjects each day, rather than focusing on just one or two subjects.
It’s more effective to study multiple subjects each day, than to deep-dive into one or two subjects (Rohrer, D. 2012).
For example, if you’re preparing for exams in math, history, physics, and chemistry, it’s better to study a bit of each subject every day. This approach will help you to learn faster than by focusing on just math on Monday, history on Tuesday, physics on Wednesday, chemistry on Thursday, and so on.
Why?
Because you’re likely to confuse similar information if you study a lot of the same subject in one day.
So to study smart, spread out your study time for each subject. In so doing, your brain will have more time to consolidate your learning.
3. Review the information periodically, instead of cramming.
Periodic review is essential if you want to move information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. This will help you get better exam grades.
As the research (Cepeda, N. 2008) shows, periodic review beats cramming hands-down.
The optimal review interval varies, depending on how long you want to retain the information. But experience – both my own and through working with students – tells me that the following review intervals work well:
1st review: 1 day after learning the new information
Similar to the Cecchetti method used by ballet dancers, in every subject matter studied, key importance points can be emulated by the lecturers or instructors. Then, they have to be studied first, prior to studying the entire subject - one cannot dance until all the key elements of the dance studied thoroughly and can be reproduced independently from each other to assess the overall level of readiness.
I would prefer to select topics and themes and the grade of deepness to study them
Almost all may student life (67 years old) with one career, one specialty, three masters degree one doctorate. coursing the second one doctorate, i am not been able to select topics and get the credits for accomplish the requirements from the university