University Scholar

The Greatest Alarm Clock Ever

Michael — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:54:51 +0000

So, I havn’t written a post in a very long time. But over the holiday break I purchased a new alarm clock, and my experience with it has been so great I just have to share. (Wow, sounds like an infomercial).

I’ll admit it’s expensive and most college students will be pressing the back button in less than a second. The price is $120.

It is a BioBrite Sunrise Alarm Clock. The purpose of the alarm is to mimic sunrise! And during the winter time this thing is great, especially if you have difficulties waking up before the sun comes up.

Every morning since I have recieved my Sunrise Clock, I have woken up to light. Not a loud annoying beeping noise, Light. Waking up has been so easy for the past two months.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but if you have a difficult time waking up and can afford it you may want to consider the BioBrite Sunrise Alarm Clock. Oh, it can also play white noise, which will make you sleep like a baby.

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Poll: Do you take notes in class?

Michael — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:19:58 +0000

Earlier this week I wrote a post on how I get by without taking notes in class. I was wondering if you take notes during class.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Don’t Take Notes in Class – How I Get by without Notes

Michael — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:32:12 +0000

If you are like me, you HATE taking notes in class. Since high school I have never taken notes during class. I didn’t take notes in high school either but that was because I was a slacker.

Now I don’t take notes in class because it is not the most effective method for most students. The key to not taking notes is reading in advanced. And here is why it works.

Most professors teach exactly what is in the text book and a little less. By reading the material before the professor even talks about it makes your life a lot easier. Most of the time when I am sitting in class I am just listening to the professor. When he or she writes something on the board, most of the time I am able to think to myself “Oh, that is in the book and is already in bold text! I can go back and use the book as my notes.”

The real reason this works so well is because of the commercialization of education. Professors are now making courses for more students than they ever have, this makes teaching a bit more time consuming and it is much easier to use the material that is in the book. Also, textbooks have much better designs now. Go to the library and look at a really old calculus book and then look at your new $200 book. There is a big difference in the organization and clarity. (However, older books are sometimes better at teaching material.) The textbook puts everything you need to know in BOLD LETTERS, boxes and diagrams, and includes a clear summary at the end of every chapter.

But reading isn’t the only thing you need to do.

Congratulations, if you read the material before class. You are doing better than most students. But just reading it may not be enough. You must try your hardest to understand the material. Once you read it go back and see if you really understand all of the material. Spend about 30 minutes trying to reinforce what you learned.

It is alright not to understand 100% of the material. However, if you understand 50% of the material that is only 50% more you need to understand in class. That is better than going to class not knowing anything.

What if the professor says something not in the book?

If you read the material, you should know what was in the material. While you are listening to the professor you should be thinking “That was in the book,” “that was in the book,” “that was not in the book,” “that was in the book.” If you noticed something that wasn’t in the book, then you can take notes, or if the professor is covering something you didn’t quite understand.

This doesn’t work for all classes.

This does not work for all classes. Seminar and advanced courses may require that you take notes. And some courses such as history may require that you take notes while you read, which is still a whole lot easier than writing really really fast to keep up with the professor during class.

This may not work for everyone, but it works for me. Do you take notes in class?

photo by Rennett Stowe

Achieving Excellence this Semester

Michael — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:00:25 +0000

This semester I challenge you to achieve a level of excellence that you have never achieved before. The goal is to achieve a level of excellence where people will be talking about what you have accomplished. Your professors will be telling their colleagues how great a job you did, and how far you have come. And when you put this accomplishment on your resume or grad application it will cause you to stand out from all the other applicants. Even you will grin at yourself and will be stunned at what you had accomplished.

Types of projects

Independent Research - No, this isn’t about writing a large report for the hell of it. This is about discovering something new that no one else has. This is about expanding your knowledge and that of the world. You will need to have some sort of adviser, either officially or unofficially. Don’t expect to be writing a graduate thesis, but publishing a paper wouldn’t be too far out there.

Go Beyond the Course – Maybe research isn’t your thing, but you want to become really really good at something. If you are taking a computer science course, you could have the goal to become an excellent programmer and a fast programmer. To get there you go above and beyond the rest of the class. When they program one project, you do three. When they only use Java, you use C++ and integrate an SQL database.

Advanced Writing – Another way to go beyond the course is to take a writing assignment and go beyond what is expected. A course requires you to write a short story. You quickly write the short story and then begin developing it into a novel. Visiting the professor biweekly with a sample piece of your writing.

Reports – Sometimes a class requires you to write a report, for example an economic analysis report. This is another assignment that you can go beyond the norm and really develop a report that is worthy of giving a CEO of a company or the president of the United States. While the report may be somewhat fictional, act as if you are doing the report for real people and real business purposes.

Service Project – Organize a service project on campus. For example, you could develop an organization that gets college students to go to the local elementary and high schools to help teach students, or tutor for free. While service projects are great, sometimes they are misguided. Just throwing money at a situation will not always improves it, and if it does it is only temporary. So if you do a service project, make sure it is a project that will last for years and really tries to fix the source of the problem.

How to Achieve Excellence

Start the first week of school - So you may not know what project to do, but you can have some brainstorming sessions through out the week. While brainstorming ask yourself these three questions:

What are you passionate about?
What skills do you currently have?
Where do you want to be in the future? And what type of project would allow you to achieve those goals?

Feedback -Make sure you have some way to receive feedback. Either have a professor to talk to or a professional that is willing to help guide you and give feedback.

Don’t Go Solo - If you are new to doing big projects, maybe grab a friend or two to help you out. Or if you do not have friends that are willing to help, ask around. Tell people your plan and see if they or anyone they know would be willing to help out. But you should already have at least five people to help you.

Pace Yourself - Take your time. Make a clear schedule. Acting like the project must be completed in two weeks will end in a project that is mediocre, not excellent. Going too quickly may even cause too much stress so you quickly give up.

What is Success? - You need to have a clear idea of what a success would be. If you are working on research, success could be publishing the paper or presenting at a research conference. If you are working on a service project, success may be 10 years later whenever there are visible results of what you did to improve the community. (Even if success is 20 years away, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.)

What’s the Purpose?

Why would any student bother with all this extra work? Well, if you are really into it, you may not see it as work. Of course there are financial benefits such as scholarships and maybe a better job in the future; however, there are personal benefits. Going to school is a time to learn about yourself and grow. By doing one of these projects and achieving excellence, you will learn more about yourself than you would have just going to class for four years. I have found that one of the greatest joys in life is pushing your limits, so go ahead and reach further than you can imagine.

Do you have any projects planned for this semester? Do you plan to achieve a level of excellence? Personally, I will be working on independent research and a website for artificial intelligence research.

photo by Jule Berlin

5 People You Should Know in College

Michael — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:00:41 +0000

The Geek

Photo by DeaPeaJay

Who?

While there are many definitions of a geek, the one you want is the tech geek. He spends most of his time at a computer or tinkering with gadgets. He knows all of the new things that are coming out, and it get’s him excited. Not only is he excited about the technology, he is also excited about telling everyone about it. He’s probably a pirate, so don’t take any music or software from him if you are concerned about piracy.

Why you need him?

You need this guy to fix your computer, tell you how to work your new iPhone, and help you do projects where you need to do some techie stuff like make a video. If you invite him over on occasion he will probably automatically go to your computer and do all those nice updates that you have been letting go for some time.

Be Careful

Make sure you get the right gal or girl. Some “geeks” aren’t really geeks. They pretend to be, and they will end up destroying your computer instead of fixing it. The perfect geek will know how to fix your stuff, but they also will not go overboard and do things to your computer that you do not want them to.

The Writer

Photo by Caitlinator

Who?

This is the person who has written or is in the process of writing a book. Not only are they a clever writer, they are quick and they have all the fundamentals down to a science. Finding this person may not be easy. Most writers don’t usually flaunt their writing about, especially when they are working on it. Speech class is a good place to spot these guys out.

Why you need a writer?

Before you even think about turning in a paper, you take it to this person. Since they are a fast writer, they will be able to quickly skim your paper and look for grammar mistakes and points that need improvement. Doing this can easily turn your ‘B’ papers into ‘A’ papers. And if your friend is good, he teach you how to write, so you don’t have to keep coming back to him.

Be Careful

You still have to write your papers, you can’t get someone to do them for you. Perhaps you are not great with words, but make sure your ideas are solid. When you go to your friend for help be able to express what you would like to say. Also, don’t let the writer completely redo your paper, make sure when you leave your friend that the paper still has the same exact points you wanted, just maybe written differently.

The Activist

Photo by .faramarz

Who?

Have you ever seen someone with a tremendous amount of passion for a social issue. Someone passionate about child mortality, education, or the current events in Iran. This person is extremely emotional and is not afraid to say their opinion.

Why an Activist?

Because you have a voice, you just have to use it. An activist friend will know about all the political rallies and protests. They will inform you of issues that you never knew about, and they tell you what you can do about it.

Be Careful

Don’t believe everything they say. Sometimes an activist will become obsessed and they will search for anything and everything to complain about. Also, there are many sides to an issue, and you need to do your own research to determine which side of the issue you are going to take.

The News Junkie

Photo by aloshbennett

Who?

You may not find just one news junkie, but will probably find multiple people who know the latest in different topics. For example, you may find a politics junkie, a sports junkie, and a science junkie.

Why do you need to know the news?

The key with news is to delegate, so you are not spending hours every day just keeping up with the latest news. Knowing what is going on in the world is extremely important. Events can affect you in many ways; from work to your social life.

Be Careful

Learn your junkies bias. The guy you are getting your political news from, make sure you know if he is a conservative or liberal. Make sure you ask where they got the information from; therefore, if you need more information you can directly to the source.

Don’t become a junkie yourself. If you have ever watched any 24-hour news station before, you probably know that a lot of news is propaganda and speculation. Just pay attention to the facts, and formulate your own opinions.

The Partier

Photo by kylemac

Who?

Um… the guy that gets wasted 3 times every weekend. Ok, or maybe he doesn’t even drink. But still he seems to be at every party you have ever gone to.

Why a Partier?

Once you get done getting an ‘A’ on your paper, keeping up with the news, and writing your senator a letter; you may need to relax and have some fun. Finding out what to do for the weekend shouldn’t be a difficult task. A quick call to a friend should do it. If you are not big on parties, make sure you have a handful of friends you can hang out with on a regular basis.

Be Careful

Moderation. Make sure you balance your social life with the rest of your life.

Exceptionally Unique Individuals

You are going to meet a lot of people in college, and on occasion you will meet a person that just WOWs you. These people are extremely gifted and have unique thoughts. These are the people you learn from, they stretch your potential, and will carry you along in their success. Latch on to these people and see where they will take you.

3 Things to Do Before Classes Start

Michael — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:00:46 +0000

There’s only about 1 week until classes start back up, and before you head back for a productive semester there are a few things you should do.

Spend a Day With Friends

Make this a simple day with your friends. It can be as simple as sitting at a coffee shop for the whole day and just talking. This is for deep conversation. Share your goals and ambitions. And when I mean friends, I mean your true friends. The ones you will still make an effort to talk to even when you are states away, this is not the same friend that you accept on facebook.

Spend A Day with your Family

Most people hate this one, but it’s an important one. Your family has done a lot for you, and you need to show them you appreciate it. Spend a day playing boardgames with your family, going out to get ice cream and just enjoy being with each other. The purpose of this is to make sure you leave your family on good terms. This will make life easier when you come home on breaks, and besides you may actually enjoy it.

Take Yourself on a Date

Now this is the important one. Plan a day where you wake up about 8 am and you leave the house and don’t come back till it’s dark out. The importance of this is for you to think. You need to get your thoughts together before you head of to college. While college is a place where you discover who you are, you still need to head to college with a bit of an idea of who you are. How do you imagine your future? What can you do to achieve your goals?

But what do you do on this “date”? Here are some suggestions:

go out to eat: breakfast, lunch, and dinner
spend sometime at the library just browsing
walk around the nearest city
go shopping (go in random shops that you normally would never go in)
go watch a movie by yourself (Yes, there are people who do that. I am one of them.)
If you are a musician like me, go to different music stores. (I once took an adventure just to find a music store with a hammered dulcimer. I just wanted to see one and play it.)
Go to a museum
Go to an orchestra concert (Not a rock concert, an orchestra concert. Something that is relaxing.)

Just pick a place that you would love to go to, but you never made the time for it. But a key part of this is that you are ALONE, no significant other, no friend (get rid of the cell phone if you can). Just you and your mind, nothing more nothing less.

While there are a lot of things you should be doing before heading back to school, these three things I find to be very important to my mental health. They allow me to have a clear mind through out the semester.

Where would you take yourself on your date?

First Week of School, Don’t Work [Quick Tip]

Michael — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:05:15 +0000

Another Quick Tip here. If you have a job and are going to school, make sure you ask off for the first week of school. The first week of school you need to build a good solid foundation. Determine when you can study, map out your course assignments on a calendar, and start reading your text books. Also the first week you are going to be busy meeting new people and getting sidetracked with free food and all the fun goodies.

Jasmine Plus Book Stand Review

Michael — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:00:43 +0000

Since I’ve been in this “improve reading” mode, I decided to purchases a book stand. At first I thought I was going to just get a cheap stand that allows me to tilt my book up. But then I saw the Jasmine Plus Book Stand I just had to have it.

Two in One

You actually end up getting two book stands. One is designed to be placed on top of the bottom one to make a double stand for some hardcore reading. But you can also take it off and use it as a standalone.

Sturdy

Compared to the other book stands out there this thing is pretty sturdy. It’s not actually made out of wood (just looks like it), but it still is a very sturdy material.

The page holding clips are great. You don’t have to worry about them tearing up your book, because they are coated in rubber. The clips are also easy to adjust and get them out of the way, if you do not want to use them.

What to Use it For?

I have discovered this book stand is great for two things; Just holding your book up while you are reading, including large textbooks, and it is wonderful for keeping a reference book open while working on something else.

For example I have been using this book to hold open some computer programming books, while I am working on programming.

If you are reading a small book, you can use the extra book stand because it is much smaller.

Negatives?

There are a few downsides to this product.

It is not portable. Some book stands are easily folded up and capable of being carried in a backpack. This one one may be a bit too big for that.
Big for a small desk. If you have a small desk it can take up almost half the space when you are using the base stand and the add-on stand.
Price. This thing was a bit expensive at $49.99 on Amazon. There is a smaller and cheaper version of the stand, the Clover Book Stand, that is only $28.99.

You can find both the small (Clover Book Stand) and large (Jasmine Plus Book Stand) versions of the book stand at Amazon.com

How to Ask a Question in Class [Guest Post]

Michael — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:00:46 +0000

This is a guest post by Stefan Knapen from StudySuccessful.com, a site about how to study. Stefan is a Dutch graduated high school student who will join the University in September. His site is full with study hacks and random study knowledge.

One of the biggest fears in a full college class is asking questions to a teacher/professor. But is it really that hard? Is asking a normal question that tough for a university student? No it isn’t.

Why asking questions

First, let’s make the importance of asking questions clear, just in case you think: ‘well, let’s just don’t ask questions.’ If you don’t know something, and you say to yourself that you will look it up after class, you will forget it or you don’t find it. Let that be clear. Further, a question means a response, so you have an explanation on a subject from the teacher himself. He is an expert in that area, so you get a good answer. And he gives the answer in class, so you have visuals with it also! Asking questions is also a way to show you are interested in the subject, which means the teacher will know that you are putting effort in your education!

How to ask questions

What are we trying to reach here? A question, which is good enough to be considered a good question. It can’t be a stupid question, because your fellow students will laugh and you will be ashamed, which means your face will be red again! Another thing, it should be related to what the teacher is talking about, or your classmates will dislike you for interrupting the teachers story.

Prepare your question. This means, write it down or say it in your head before you ask him. Does it look stupid? Is it related to the subject? Is it something you can look up in your textbook? If the answers are ‘no yes no’, you can ask the question.
Be polite. Don’t ask your question right away. ‘So, that is some sort of relativity?’ That isn’t a good way of asking something. First raise your hand, begin your sentence with sir. ‘Sir, does this mean there is some sort of relativity?’ sounds much better, right?
Listen to the answer, until the teacher is finished. I have seen it, classmates asked something, listened to the answer and began talking with someone else, while the teacher wasn’t even finished answering the question.
Write things down. This is even better than just listening, write things down when the teachers is answering.
Thank the teacher. ‘Alright, thank you sir.’ means a lot to teachers. They don’t get much gratitude from students, stand out of the crowd by a short thank you.

Now you know how to ask questions without looking stupid or annoying teachers/students! Any questions?

This post was written by Stefan from StudySuccessful.com, visit his site to read more!

Question mark photo by Alexander Rachmann

Speed Reading – Week 1

Michael — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:00:50 +0000

My whole life, I thought that speed reading was impossible. I dismissed anyone’s claim that they could read extremely fast, assuming that if they were reading that quickly they had to sacrifice their comprehension of the material. But when I started working through the book Breakthrough Rapid Reading.

I was a slow reader, but after one week I am already working my way to being an above average reader.

Photo by ckaroli

The Benefits of Reading Fast

Let’s compare someone who reads at the average college level and someone that can speed read. The average college reading speed is 240-350 words per minute; we will assume 300. And a speed reader can reach speeds up to 2,000 words per minute; we will take a conservative speed of 1,000 words per minute.

Assuming that these two readers spend 2 hours a day reading for 300 days of the year, and assume that they are reading 400 page books. After doing some number crunching, you discover the college level reader can read 77 books in a year, but in the same amount of time the speed reader would have read 257 books.

Now taking the assumption that reading gives you knowledge, you can see that the speed reader will have an advantage in life. Even if you are not worried about acquiring more knowledge than other people, you can at least acquire the same amount of knowledge in a lot less time.

Note this scenario is a bit extreme, but it gets the point across.

My Reading Improvement

I have had the book for a week. I usually wouldn’t write a review so quickly, but I am just absolutely amazed. I’m surprised of how much 1 week of speed reading practice has helped. Before I tell you how much I have improved I will tell you where I started at in each of the three areas of reading.

Comprehension - This is how well you understand the material you are reading, and I would put myself at above average. I usually have a very clear understanding of what I read. And even though my reading speeds are increasing my ability to comprehend has not decreased, which disproves my previous misconception.

Retention - This is how well you remember what you read. While I have an excellent ability to remember the concepts of the material, I am not that great at remembering names, new vocabulary and dates. The book hasn’t helped with this much; however, it could be hard for me to tell the difference. (Note I am not even half way done with the book.)

Speed - This is where the book really helps you out. I will admit that I was a slow reader. I was on the line of being a below average and an average reader, about 180 words per minute. But after one week, I am passing the average college reader speed and going into the above average region, at 355 words per minute (I tested my speed right before writing this post).

Practice

This is not like a get rich scheme. You will not become a speed reader just by reading this book. It requires practice! There are reading drills and you must do them. The book claims that if you drill 40 minutes a day for six weeks you will be reading approximately 800-1200 words per minute. (The type of reading material will determine your maximum limit.)

Photo by qualtiero

Test Your Self – Discover your reading speed

Go ahead and test yourself. Find a book, preferably nonfiction. And follow these steps.

Go here for an online stop watch.
Set it to count down for 3:00 minutes. (Make sure you turn up your speakers.)
Find a starting point in your book. A section that you have not read.
Start the count down and begin reading. Read like you always do. Don’t try to rush and act like you can read faster than you really can. (Read a section that does not have graphs or odd typing.)
When the timer goes off make a mark where you stopped.
Now, count how many words are in 3 lines, then divide that number by 3 to determine the average words per line.
Count up the number of lines you read. If it is less than half of a line don’t count it, and if it is more than half of a line count it.
Multiply the number of lines by the number of words in each line. Then divide by 3 to get your words per minute.

Here’s the formula: (words per line) x (lines read)/(minutes read[3])

How did you do? Can you read faster than I can? Even if you are a naturally fast reader and are reading above 500 words per minute, there is still room for improvement.

If you are interested in learning how to speed read I highly suggest you purchase Breakthrough Rapid Reading by Peter Kump. The book is only $11 at Amazon. I really think speed reading can be life changing for anyone interested in a professional career.