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Study Hacks Blog

Anatomy of an A+: A Look Inside the Process of One of the World’s Most Efficient Studiers

Scott Young’s Graduation Gift to Study Hacks

I have to give credit to Scott Young: it was talking blogs with him back in 2007 that helped convince me to start Study Hacks. The fact that I link to Scott’s material again and again and again and again should tell you that we think in similar patterns.

The reason I’m bringing up Scott today is that he’s about to graduate from university. One of the things that intrigued when I first met him four years ago is that, like many students I profiled in the red book, he had the ability to score top grades without needing to study much.

It turns out that he kept this up: He will graduate this month with a GPA that hovers between an A and an A+, even though he almost never studied for more than a handful of hours.

In honor of Scott’s graduation, I asked him if he would share his secrets. I don’t want vague philosophies, I told him. Study Hacks readers are more interested in a blow-by-blow case study of exactly how he studied for a specific test, including screenshots of his notes and a careful accounting of his time.

Fortunately for us, Scott agreed. Below you’ll find the details of how he scored an A+ on a corporate finance exam that had a 50% failure rate at his university. His total time studying: 3.5 hours.

Take it away Scott…

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Is It Possible to Feel Passionate About Being a Tax Consultant?

The (Lack of) Passion of the Tax Consultant

In the summer of 2008, I met John, a rising senior at an Ivy League college. He was worried about his impending graduation.

“What advice can you give to a student who wants to live more spontaneously?”, he asked. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but was clear about his “dreams to do something big.”

I gave John some advice, mainly centered around lifestyle-centric career planning, and then we went our separate ways.

That is, until two weeks ago, when John sent me a note.

“Well, I ignored your advice at my peril,” he began. John had taken a job as a corporate tax consultant. Though he found the work to be “sometimes interesting,” the hours were long and the tasks were fiercely prescribed, making it difficult to stand out.

“Aside from not liking the lifestyle”, John complained, “I’m concerned that my work doesn’t serve a larger purpose and, in fact, hurts the most vulernable.”

Longtime Study Hacks readers are familiar with my unconventional stance on finding work you love. I don’t believe in “following your passion.” In most cases, I argue, passion for what you do follows mastery — not from matching a job to a pre-existing calling.

John’s story, however, strains this philosophy. It poses a question that I’ve been asked many times before: can I generate a passion for any job?

In other words, is there a way for John to grow to love being a corporate tax consultant?

Here was my answer: probably not.

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How to Become a Rhodes Scholar: Decoding the Accomplishments of Elite Students

The Rhodes Effect

“The 2011 Rhodes Scholars were just announced, which made me depressed and wondering about how they accomplish all the things they do!”

This was the opening line from a recent e-mail. To illustrate what troubled this e-mailer, I’ve reproduced below the official bio from one of the 2011 Rhodes Scholars:

Nicholas A. DiBerardino, is a senior at Princeton where he majors in music (composition). A campus leader in student government and a junior member of Phi Beta Kappa, Nick is an accomplished composer with many awards for his compositions. He has been a composer in residence at the Brevard Music Center and the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. He founded the Undergraduate Composer Collective at Princeton. While in high school, Nick founded a program to collect, refurbish and distribute used instruments and to provide instruction to needy students in Bridgeport. He plans to do the M.Phil. in music at Oxford.

Like all Rhodes Scholars, Nicholas’ bio is stunning. It’s not just the quantity of the accomplishments, but also their quality: every accolade is impressive. It’s no wonder that my e-mailer felt down on himself: when you encounter elite students like Nicholas, it really can seem like you’re not doing nearly enough.

But here’s what’s interesting: when you spend time around Rhodes Scholars, as I did when researching the yellow book, you become skilled at understanding not just what they did, but also how they got it done, and this understanding leads to a surprising conclusion: the proper reaction to an elite student such as Nicholas is not “I should be doing more,” but instead: “I should be doing less.”

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