Incredible post.

[...] art of being a pre-med student. Clear your schedule of junk so you have abundant time to become an A* student in the topic. Become obsessive about the effectiveness of your technical study [...]

[...] Study Hacks, maintained by Cal Newport. The key focus behind this blog is the concept of achieving A* grades, following the Straight-A Method and Zen Valedictorianism concepts to achieve it. Basically, this [...]

[...] Wiki-driven writing enjoys two important advantages. First, the structure of the wiki helps you structure your research. Plugging your research into a clear information hierarchy is superior to simply creating a large pile of stuff. Second, working through these different levels forces you to do lots of high-level thinking before you get to the outlining and writing phase. In some sense, your paper research wiki requires you to master the nuances and complexity of the topic before you think about what you want to say about it. I can tell you from experiences, this is the approach that generates A* results. [...]

Good Will Hunting rules. Like when he burns that proof and says “You know how easy this shit is for me?” What a great scene.

At MIT, one of my favorite hobbies is to walk up to whiteboards where people are working on a proof, scribble ten lines of made-up equations. Scrawl qed. Turn and give them the “you know how easy this shit is for me” line. Then walk away.

The problem with the GWH strategy can be summed up in one simple statement: YOU’RE NOT THAT SMART.

Amen. There is a tenured professor down the hall who is my same age! He’s as close to a genius as there is in the real world. Here’s the thing: he can’t solve proofs in a flash either. No one can! Classes take time no matter how smart you are!

I think the GWH tends to be a peculiar male trait

I don’t know…I get a lot of e-mails from students neck-deep in GWH-fueled misery. The gender mix is pretty equal…

Carol Dweck’s done some good research on this subject: people who tend to think that intelligence is fixed and that hard work actually means you’re not that smart.

Thanks for the links. I love Dweck’s work. An interesting anecdotal observation is that this fixed intelligence mindset is specifically American. In other countries, grades and workload seem to be more connected with work ethic. If you meet a grind, you don’t think “wow, what a genius,” you think instead “what a diligent worker.”

given the cost per credit hour at public universities, I’m afraid I don’t have the money to do this.

Important Clarification: I don’t advise that you take less than the normal course load for your school. I’m suggesting, instead, that you balance the courses you take so your schedule is not killer. For example, if you take 4 courses per semester, and two are major courses, than balance them with an elective that fascinates you, or an intro course in a new subject, or a seminar-based course that has its work concentrated in a final paper not weekly assignments, etc.

Even just introducing variety into the type of material can make a big difference. At Dartmouth, for example, I majored in computer science and minored in Art History. Each semester I would mix the two types of courses. It’s not that one type of course was necessarily easier than the other, but they had such different demands on my mind that they helped prevent overload. When I got tired writing proofs I could shift to reading essays, and vice versa.

I updated the post to include this clarification.

[...] Study Hacks – “The A Strategy“ [...]

Instead now I try to look up to those who get their goals effectively and efficiently.