On Learning Well for Academic Success

Academic success is a key ticket to enter workplace. It opens many opportunities to work and give students confidence to demand reasonable salary at entry level.
 

Even though students recognize the importance of Academic success, many of them are struggling in schools. Why is this phenomenon happening?
 

There are several reasons can decipher this phenomenon and may point a way to help students learn better.
 

First, students must be clear with their target, at least the short-term target. For example, they want to get high score in some subjects and become competent in some problem-solving skills that give them opportunities to work part-time or in the future. But the most serious students have long-term target in their chosen profession. They know well what they are pursuing in life and learning is the basic steps helping them to achieve their ambition. Those students who don’t have clear target will confuse their learning and see learning as a burden, therefore they may choose playing games, having party instead of learning seriously.
 

Second reason comes from misunderstanding the seriousness of learning. Students think learning is easy or learning is not matter much in life. They are wrong. Learning is not much different from working; both are serious work. For students, learning is working fulltime. Learning well demand full attention from students in terms of time and effort. Great students learn at least 50 hours per week including classroom, group work and self-study. The best students at prestigious schools learn seriously as a full-time job. Those students are not serious with learning will struggle in school and pay high price after leaving school such as less job opportunities and get lower salary.
 

The final reason related to biology of the brain. We have different brain power. Some think well and some think not well. Some can absorb information and extract lesson easily, some struggle with information and experience. In this situation, there not much can be done to help students. The optimal option is students and family should choose a reasonable programme for learning that suits the capacity of the students. Too high ambition that beyond ability of students can lead to stressful life, in school or in work.
 

So how to overcome the difficulty in learning and achieve academic success? There are a few things students can do. First, do soul-searching to identity the long-term target in life and short-term target during schoollife. If students do not know the long-term target yet, be clear with short-term target. At least students should learn well some fundamental skills for work and as stepstone to learn further in the future. Second, students should assess themselves well whether they can handle the workload at school. Some subjects are very hard, demanding huge amount of time, effort and attention. If their ability to learn is below the prerequisite level, below the average level of their classmates, they will struggle and lose self-confidence. Finally, recognize that learning well is a full-time job, it demands undivided attention and time and effort. Be serious. Be committed.