Weekend Links: Stop Working on Fridays, Meet Better People, and Become Perplexed by Cal’s Prolificness
Links October 19th. 2007, 7:15pmInteresting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal.
Assorted Productivity Gems
- Updated Student Work Day | ProtoScholar
Rebecca from ProtoScholar discusses how she structures her busy student schedule; good case study. - The Four-Day Week Challenge | A List Apart
An older article I stumbled across recently. It proposes reducing your work week (if self-employed, or, I think equivalently, a student) to only four days. - OneNote: An Introduction | Scholastici.us
Gideon provides a great tutorial to a note-taking program that I keep hearing good things about. - 4 Ways to Radically Improve Your Chances of Academic Success | GearFire
Tips 1 -3 will sound familiar to Study Hacks fans. The fourth tip, however, is new, and incredibly insightful. It involves who you surround yourself by. Want more information? Click and find out…
Cal Gets Inexplicably Prolific
- The Art of the Finish: How to Go from Busy to Accomplished | Scott Young
A guest post I wrote for Scott’s blog. It introduces the idea of completion-centric planning — a technique for shifting your focus from tasks to projects. - How Do the Best Professors Work? | Academic Productivity
A guest post I wrote for Academic Productivity about how I schedule my work week as a graduate student (hint: it’s inspired by the work habits of top professors). - Don’t Do What Johnny Don’t Does | Hack College
A guest I wrote for Hack College about simple — yet important — prohibitions if you want to avoid becoming a terrible, terrible college student. - The Satirist Next Door | Flak Magazine
An article I recently published in Flak Magazine. It takes a look at a new media start-up with an interesting new model for humor writing. - Allis on Allis | Flak Magazine
Another article I wrote for Flak Magazine. It’s a first-person profile of Ryan Allis, a young entrepreneur who has challenged himself to accomplish a seemingly impossible goal.
October 20th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Two points:
1. I remember in “How to Win at College”, at one point you gave a nod to the fact that it’s important to scope out a variety of classes and in particular their profs in order to decide if they’re worth taking. While I agree that actually sitting in a class is hands down the best way to evaluate a prof, I also wanted to toss out that the sites http://www.ratemyprofessor.com and http://www.ratemyprofessor.ca also have student commentaries on professor performance. Pop in the name of your school, look up your prof, and see what the buzz is on them.
I tend to do this while picking my courses in the spring for the next year to get a feel for the classes. Of course the ratings on the website can’t be taken for gospel, because some students are just bitter and don’t like the fact that they weren’t spoon fed throughout college. I’ve found through this site though, that sometimes I end up taking profs and classes I wouldn’t have otherwise, because I would have skipped over them if not for the praises of other students on the site. Point in case: my French professor, who I had met previously before taking her class this semester, is known as being a gruff, strict woman. I desperately wanted to take French, but was looking for a class without this harsh of a professor. Through the site though, I found out while she is indeed strict and demanding, once the classes narrow down into who will be sticking around for sure for the semester, she softens up, becomes more available and helpful, and has a surprisingly sympathetic side when you’re sick, etc, none of which I would have realized sitting in on the first week or two of classes, unless I had read commentaries about her.
2. Will you be writing a book about strategies for making the most and doing the best in graduate school at some point as well? A tougher subject I would imagine, but as someone who is going to grad school in the next year and has cruised through my undergrad years because of your books, I’m hoping for a Cal Newport production to help guide me through those years as well with any luck!
October 21st, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Good suggestion, Brittany. I agree you should combine all sources of information about a professor. In addition to large websites, like rate my professor, talk to students who have had the professor before and look for rating sites and underground guides specific to the school.
Regarding the grad school book idea, my first step is to actually get through grad school unscathed, then we’ll see
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
I just found your site through shoutingmat.ch (lifehacks) and I am super impressed with your stuff. Your two books look amazing and from what I read in your excerpts, exactly the stuff that successful students need. I once had a dream of writing something similar when I was done with school but now I’m just going to refer your two books instead. I’m adding you to my RSS feed immediately. =)
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Thanks Jason. Glad to have you on board…