5 Super Study Skills for Super-achieving Students

It's been a while!

Welcome back to my blog...While I hope to drop my top 5 reasons to study in Canada which I’m sure a lot of people are waiting for, I thought again to digress with some study tips I engaged while doing my adult education - doing the MBA I mean.

If you have been following my past blogs, you’d have known that I came to the UK for an MBA programme with my 2 kids and husband. My husband went back to Nigeria to work after settling us for 2 weeks so I was left with the kids. The first Monday which was called orientation week started on a ‘high’ with activities starting from 9am to 5pm everyday. I was initially like ‘What is this oh, who sent me this message of adult education’- it was ‘TOOOO’ hectic. I actually thought it would end after the 1st week but I discovered that this was going to be the routine being a full-time MBA programme. A class mate of mine quit after week one and went back to Canada. She said she couldn’t cope (sad though 😐)

Anyways, I had come all the way from Nigeria to study and I meant business. In my case I had to juggle many things at the same time. I was blogging for the University, involved in Fellowship activities, doing school runs, Parents events and of course studying with very tight deadlines. Before I embarked on the journey though and as a firm believer of 'beginning with the end in mind', I had said I was hoping to graduate with a 'distinction' but my confidence and confession began to wane seeing the amount of effort that I had to put in. We had several group projects, class presentations and what have you. I’d like to share however ‘5’ major things I did during this time.

1. Read the book -  'Super Study Skills for Super-achieving Students': Oh yes I did. When I was writing this book - ‘Super Study Skills for Super-achieving Students’, I never thought I’d use it. I wrote it with secondary school students in mind and probably undergrad students. I picked it up and decided to run with the tips I found in it - some of which are the other 4 points below. (Please order your copy ASAP!)
   





2. Pasted my daily confession and desired grades on the wall: This practice has never failed me as I had done this since my undergraduate days. It was always helpful when I felt like sleeping or lazing and I suddenly cast a glance at my wall/vision board. My immediate reaction would be like someone put a knife to my throat saying ‘your A’s or your sleep?’ (Lol). I had also come across a scripture in Proverbs that says ‘Give no unnecessary sleep to your eyelid’ ...This purely meant there is something called ‘unnecessary sleep’ and I refused to indulge in any ‘unnecessary sleep’ I also often read out my short confession (I have longer ones though) which read: ‘A’ IS AN EXCELLENT GRADE, I HAVE AN EXCELLENT SPIRIT, THEREFORE A’s ARE MINE. By the way, I wrote a book as an addendum to Super Study Skills for Super-achieving Students titled ‘Daily Academic Declaration’. I strongly believe you need to ‘confess’ to ‘access’ your desires (see rhymes - 😆). Please grab your copy quickly...







3. Set my own deadlines and worked hard: I always set my deadlines a week or days before the actual submission deadline. This meant I worked extra hard by making every day count. I wrote somewhere in the book that ‘Just like you need to maintain a healthy body by eating everyday, so also you need to maintain healthy grades by studying everyday’. Some people might not see the need to set personal deadlines but I noticed it worked for me and I used the few days before submission to revise and make the necessary corrections to my work. I also submitted my assignments with much more calm and confidence - no pressures at all. For my final project which I had to work on in my room because my kids were on Summer Holidays and I was moving house, I decided to finish 1 month before actual submission of course making bits of corrections along the way but giving me time to do other things.








4. Utilised YouTube videos being an auditory and visual learner: A concept I mentioned in the book was understanding your learning styles as there are ‘Auditory learners’ (those that learn better via hearing. This means attending lectures is compulsory for such); ‘Visual Learners’ (those that learn better via videos or seeing things demonstrated) and ‘Kinesthetics learners’ (those who learn by practicals or role-playing). Much as I always attended lectures, I noticed that it further sank in when I revised by watching videos and I kid you not, there is absolutely nothing you’re looking for that you would not get online so please utilise the ‘Free gift to man' - Google and Youtube






5. Asked questions where confused: This was something I never did in my undergraduate days. I also didn’t feel very comfortable asking questions in class but I emailed the lecturer that I needed clarification on certain concepts and he went over and beyond to explain it. This was the accounting and finance class with lots of ‘strange’ concepts like WACC, EBITDA, NPV, IRR (smh). I was however grateful I did ask for help because I scored well on the course and realised it was actually my RIGHT to know and understand these things. What if I didn’t? Your guess is as good as mine.

Of course my final tip which is the most important of all is - Committing all into the ultimate giver of strength and strategy - God. He was the one that helped me to juggle many balls without dropping any. And when my results were released in November, behold, I got a DISTINCTION!

To order your copies for your children or as gifts to friends, please contact Olayemi on 08094449589.

Yours in inspiring educational excellence...

Yejide