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Study Hacks Blog

Q & A: How Much Does Intelligence Matter at College?

Contest Update: You have until midnight tonight (EST) to send in your entry for the HP Magic Giveaway. Remember, I’m giving away $6000 worth of computers, printers, and software to one lucky winner. Click here for the rules and information on how to enter. (Note: the contest is now closed. I’ll announce the winner on Friday.)

An Interesting Question…Doogie!

A student recently sent me an interesting question. It’s a topic I’ve thought a lot about, so I thought I would share my answer with you.

Here’s the original question:

To what extent does intelligence matter in college success? I have a group of friends that try very hard at school, yet fail to score the grades a select group of people I know are able to do. This question captures my concern about grad school admissions: no matter how hard I try, there will always be hundreds of other “geniuses” out there.

I responded: I don’t believe that intrinsic intelligence plays any significant role at the college level.

Let me explain why…

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Announcing the Rules for my Free Computer Giveaway

HP Magic

4 Is The New 1

Earlier this fall, I teamed up with HP for the Freshman 15 giveaway and was able to give a brand spanking new laptop to a most deserving student. As I announced a couple weeks back, HP, now teamed up with Microsoft, has returned with an even sweeter offer: 4 brand new computers for me to give away; not to mention printers, software, DVDs, the whole works…

Today, I officially open my contest. The rules are listed below and you have exactly one week to enter.

But before I continue, I should clarify, in case you’re wondering: I get nothing out of this promotion. (Sadly.) That is, HP is not paying me. Their hope is that by giving away thousands of dollars of free stuff they will generate good will with you guys. My interest is only that I like giving you free stuff!

The Official Rules

The rules for my contest are as follows:

  • You have to be a current college or graduate student to enter.
  • You have to e-mail me by midnight EST on Wednesday 12/17 with a proposal for how you would play Santa Claus at your school this season if you were to win. In other words, make a pitch for how you would distribute this equipment at your school if you were to win the contest. (Of course, I assume that you’ll keep one of the machines for yourself!) Is there a club that really needs it? Do you have an idea for a campus-wide contest? Do you have a plan to use the giveaway to drum up some media attention or raise money for a worthy cause?
  • You don’t have to live in the United States to win.

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How Allison Used Her iPod to Ace Biology

Contest Update: This Saturday I’ll be announcing the rules for the HP Magic contest. If you’ll recall, I’m giving away 5 brand new computers, a wireless printer, a bunch of free software, and more. While you’re waiting for my contest rules to be announced, check out this site for a list of the 49 other blogs also participating.

Post Update (4/8/09): Stefan from the Dutch School Kid blog has posted an article summarizing his experience trying to use this technique to study for his own biology course. 

iTunes Notes

Panic Mode

It was two weeks before her biology final, and Allison, an undergraduate at McGill University, was starting to panic. She had been trying to review her class notes but found the process increasingly tedious. Her concentration would not hold, and the material was not sinking in.

Allison knew she was more an audio than a visual learning, but recognized early in the semester that David’s technique of recording entire lectures to review later would be too inefficient. (The lectures were loooonnng and dddrrryyy.) She needed something more punchy.

That’s when she noticed the iTunes icon on her computer desktop and hatched a clever plan…

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How to Ace Essay Questions Using the Three Minute Rule

Blue Book Phobia

Blue Book

As we tumble toward final exams, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address one of the most dreaded denizens of the season: the blue book essay exam. Nothing strikes more fear into the heart of a liberal arts student than seeing that big blue book, full of empty, lined pages, just waiting to be filled with paragraphs pregnant with novel insight.

These exams are tough. But in this post I will teach you a devastatingly effective trick for squeezing out the most possible points once you sit down for the test itself. Of course, this advice assumes you’ve done smart preparation (see last week’s post on exam prep mistakes for some pointers on this topic). But assuming you know your stuff, this advice will teach you how to strut it.

It all comes down to the three simple minutes…

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5 Mistakes to Avoid During Finals

Post-Thanksgiving ScrambleExam Hall

It’s the week after Thanksgiving. For most students this means finals are rapidly approaching. If you haven’t begun thinking about how to tackle this upcoming challenge, now is a great time to start. With this in mind, I want to review 5 common mistakes that students make during this period.

Read what’s below before diving into your own final-driven scramble and you’ll increase your odds of making it to Christmas vacation unscathed by an academic disaster.

Mistake #1: Not Having a Clear Schedule

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Case Study: How I Got the Highest Grade in my Discrete Math Class

A Hallway EncounterMath!

During my sophomore year at Dartmouth I took a course in discrete mathematics. The tests were not calibrated to any standard scale, so it was difficult to judge how well you were doing. On the midterm, for example, scores around 50 to 60 out of 100 were at the top of the class, whereas for the final those would be failing.

Rewind, then, to the end of the winter quarter, and imagine my surprise in the following scenario. It’s the day after the final. I’m walking through a hallway when I encounter the TA:

“You…got the highest grade,” he said.

“On the final?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“No, for the entire course.”

This was hard to believe. The course had 70 students. Three of them were from Eastern Europe where, educated in the old Soviet-style talent-tracking system, they had already studied this subject in high school!

I didn’t think of myself as a math person. Before this class, I had shown no particular talent for the subject. I was trying to just hang in there with a decent grade. My victory, as we like to say here on Study Hacks, was tactical.

In this post I will explain how I achieved this feat, and how following similar strategies can help you dominate even the most thorny technical courses…

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Q & A: Mastering Question Clusters, Breaking Up with Terrible Majors, Withdrawing from a ‘B’, and Debating a Two-Day a Week Course Schedule

From the reader mailbag:Questions and Answers

I have three questions about your focused question clusters study strategy.

  1. Is the list of rapid-fire questions for one test (with answers) supposed to be nearly as long as a textbook chapter?
  2. I’m confused — what exactly are they supposed to cover?
  3. Can one go about making them without spending several days’ worth at the computer or with a pen and pencil?

Cal responds:

  1. Hopefully much shorter.
  2. Everything you need to know for the test.
  3. Try to inline the question building with your note-taking in class and while doing reading assignments. Don’t wait until right before the test to construct all of your clusters from scratch.

From the reader mailbag:

I have two majors and a minor. I love one of my majors (Psychology) and my minor (French). Most of my stress comes from my other major (Business). I dislike my business classes and find them hard. I want to go to grad school for Psych after graduation. I am using business as a “back up”… but this “back up” is taking over my life!!! If I could have things my way, I would finish the psych major, apply for grad school, and graduate.

What do I do? I am too scared to not go the B-school route…

Cal responds:

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