How to Get High Grades in University/College.

but let's be real most of these essays
you're gonna write you're gonna read about them into the research for a couple of days and then you're you're never gonna think about it again and I got I got some hate mail sometimes genuinely hateful sometimes playful making fun of me for being the guy with a stack of books on camera but for all those research assignments again it's not necessarily the amount of time you do the writing from the day of the assignment I would get the books I would have the books and I would live with the books until the assignment was done but the ultimate reason to have that lead time to not do it that me two weeks is not enough to do it on the day they hand you the assignment is so that you can drop the course so when I was in college most people that I knew wrote their essays in an overnight like mad session so right before the due date so you recently were talking about how you got good grades and university courses and you said that on the first day when you were given the syllabus you would go to the library look at the bugs start thinking about how you would finish the assignments right and that is basically the ideal way that you should approach a course that you should approach any assignment you should think about it at the beginning of the term and you know throughout the term be thinking about how you're gonna formulate a research paper or an essay of some kind you seemed really surprised when I said that I mean what not true but that's how you seem you seem surprised might I say yeah the same day the teacher handed me the piece of paper with the assignment I would go to the library that day normally immediately after class when I got the piece of paper yeah and I would start physically stacking up the books to write the assignment it's like what the professor's recommend like they're like you should start thinking about this now it's it's not rocket science but in terms of a nobody right well right I was being like that they thought I was being really proactive because like like two weeks beforehand I'd be like okay I need to actually make a first draft right and I know like you tend to write things and you know you go with one of the first drafts three I can I can do all the writing in one night but writing it should be the final stage of the process right right um for me it's more of like I have to write a lot of like I have to write a first draft and then do edits over and over and over again for me to actually feel comfortable with it like one of my professors early on told me that the secret to good writing is rewriting and for me that works I know it's not the case for everybody and like you're just you're just really well-spoken and like you're really like well you know when you write it comes across really well well in some ways you know the essay that brought us together so it's a very long essay about this war that took place or civil war in 1920 Massacre of a village vote so it's an interesting historical political event but that essay you know I did basically all the writing for that in one night yeah I mean if I really got detailed there's one section of it that was written on a separate night to a remarkable extent that was but writing is the final phase of the process right it's not like the reading was done in one night it's not that the research was done one right right yeah to me that's really impressive it said like you just have you have a really good memory so like you after you read something it's it's easy for you to not only summarize but like form a coherent and cohesive opinion that's interesting you know well okay like at least for me like it's it's it's biased okay she's in love with me no no you make a totally good point but like my point in this video is not to talk about like the unique advantages I may haven't write a good essay it's it's basically to talk about the elements of my approach that other people can do too yeah I'm just saying but I mean like not everyone is gonna have that kind of memory not everyone's gonna have that kind of level of writing ability where you sit down and do it in one night but when you talk about the first thing these significance of going to get the books on the same night you're handed the assignment the same day you get the assignment from the professor so you mentioned your friends regarded you as more studious and they were because you would give it two weeks yeah when you really think about it two weeks is not enough two weeks right nothing I know I know two weeks is not enough why point one most universities in most of the world right now they will not have the books you need at the library on paper they will have to order them from other libraries on most topics now admittedly if you are doing a first year essay on Shakespeare probably there are enough books literary analysis want something really mainstream something really normal for the discipline but even when I did some pretty pretty mainstream stuff like I did I did it at NSA on migration policy immigration policy in Japan I thought oh this is a meeting of Japan's a mainstream country this isn't like researching Cambodia or Laos or something this is an ancient history this is current politics the last 50 years I should be able to get a lot of books No so if you're not way out in advance of the topic your ability to order books in from other libraries you you really can't do it two weeks is not enough all right if you're ordering interlibrary loan and as I say on almost all topics almost all universities that is what you're relying on right that's thing one thing too is you're giving yourself enough time to make mistakes and to come up with a new topic or to toe to redefine and redirect your topic so you know you might have had some assumptions like okay let's stick with that example it's a boring example that's still like okay I was gonna do an essay on immigration policy in Japan and I assumed I'd be able to find articles that dealt with the relationship between immigration and unemployment the unemployment rate and immigration policy and in fact I can't find anything about that or the relationship between to isn't what I expected it to be so instead I'm gonna do immigration and crime you know change like that no again it may sound like a small change but both in terms of the digital resources you need to use and in terms of books on paper now you need new books you may need to order them from other libraries you may need to do to do new work that way right uh something people used to make fun of me for I think you remember this from the old days my channel I used to often have a stack of books on camera there was just a lot of books in the room with me and I got I got some hate mail sometimes genuinely hateful sometimes playful making fun of me for being the guy with the stack of books on camera but for all those research assignments again it's not necessarily the amount of time you do the writing from the day of the assignment I would get the books I would have the books and I would live with the books until this time it was done right so she mentioned again this is what I want to Jimmy you said I have a really good memory I was not memorizing the book this stuff it's a the resources I was quoting to to write these papers right um partly just cuz my level of interest was in high enough like let's be real most of these essays you're gonna write you're gonna read about them and do the research for a couple of days and then you're you're never gonna think about it again I mean you just could stick with the same example yeah I did learn I learned something I learned many things from that research assignment on Japanese migration Japanese immigration policy bites I'm not I don't regret gee I wish I'd worked harder I was I wish I'd committed that stuff the members like not at all um I would very simply when going through the books use bookmarks you know put in bookmarks I can find the page I would take handwritten notes also for where I was gonna find things in the books and then it would physically have the copies of the books I did that's mine you must my essays were about literature so I would just make a note you know this is this is one you know one portion of the book that I would like to like write an essay about so I would I would make notes with that like on page write write write he deals with this topic or whatever right yeah so then when I was doing the writing for me also I'm just saying keys think I have a perfect memory of photographic memory not for this kind of thing I would more oh yeah right that guy says something about unemployment or that guy says something about crime let's go and get that and then you know put it in the essay sure so I mean I'm a regular human being I don't you know I don't have any kind of great advantage on on that level but the lead time there of living with the books and having the books on your on your desk I think that's that's crucial mmm and you have to be lost to yourself but how much or how little reading you're gonna do to having books on paper is a huge advantage over having articles in a PDF format or articles download from the internet if you have the luxury printing those out on paper for exactly this reason your ability to rifle through them and mark them and everything I do think the learning process is better on paper but yes I also do sometimes just used purely purely digital editions and make notes based on them think you rely more on on handwritten notes when you do but I mean the ultimate reason to have that lead time to not do it they'll be two weeks is not enough to do it on the day they hand you the assignment is so that you can drop the course if for any reason you know this is an assignment and you realize you have nothing to say you realize you can't write an a-plus essay you realize you can't succeed you realize the professor is hostile to you because I've dealt with that a bunch of times a lot of my courses are about politics and you realize this professor politically really disagrees with what I'm about or disagrees with my approach they have a bias or an interest opposite to mine or what have you or it may be completely personal I've heard about that in literature courses too you know this this professor just plain hates me for whatever reason a lot of them all of those are compelling reasons to drop a course because if you have those kinds of factors against you you can do ten times as much work and you're still gonna get a B+ or a C+ or an a-minus when you when you deserve the grade in the nineties when you're doing as much work as to get a grade in the 90s so whenever you're in a scenario or you can't win don't win drop the course preferably you want to drop it before that you have to pay for the course because there's normally a brief pretend but again you would have to make that decision up front right nor most universities maybe you have two weeks maybe you have four weeks at the beginning where you can make this is you to drop the course we could make the decision to enroll in another course so that's that's crucial you get the essay assignment you go to the library you get the book so you find out what books you can and can't get and that's gonna be linked to whether or not you you you you stay in the course okay can you give an example like what I'm thinking about like some courses that it really didn't like like there was one right yeah I never read a Virginia Woolf book but I was like I've heard that I should read Virginia Woolf great many great works of literature so I took I took a class that was exclusively Virginia Woolf books and I wish I hadn't it was really just terrible who was children because the professor or the like like I had heard many good things not the professor to like like that he was really charismatic that liked his lectures were interesting and like I say topics were you know also you know engaging and yeah so um but yeah so I'm just trying to think like you know I when I first like started I looked at the syllabus and I was like okay you know I bought the books like very soon after that but what was you just what was it actually with the content with the manuals yeah okay I mean we'll keep in mind guys education is not entertainment and that's also look I mean there were two things I wanna highlight here one why do we have this divide between education culture and world culture world culture if you're at work if you're it's your job and your boss hands you an assignment when do you work on the assignment the minute he hands you the assignment you started that day but at university your prof. hands you an assignment when do you work on it three months later that makes no sense the same way this is your job you're a professional student whatever you want to say that's that's what you do when they hand you the assignment you should that that division but there's also the division between education culture culture and entertainment culture anything in a lot of ways that's looking at of course the wrong way to say oh I hear this is entertaining the the professor is entertaining or the reading is entertaining as opposed to looking at one what you're gonna learn from it like you know what is the educational value for you and then to the mode of evaluation so I give you a ton of example of courses of drops where III it was a no-win situation for me but one that might surprise you is actually linguistics so I remember a linguistics class I enrolled in and if you read the description of it you'd think wow this is exactly what aisel would like this exactly what this guy would want to take because I have a lot of interest in language research including indigenous peoples languages minority language is language education there's a lot of things about language than the rest of me but there were many reasons why I dropped this course but it included the method of evaluation so this is of course that wasn't based on writing an essay it was based on you would go home and you would log into a computer and do a multiple-choice test and little assignments and so on and just I sat there and read the syllabus and I looked at the you know I looked at the the mode of evaluation and always remember there was a girl sitting next to me in class and she had you know some kind of learning disability I don't know she was probably something like dyslexic or something and she was so delighted she sat there and said out loud in her chair like she said this is grade it doesn't require any writing at all ever because I was sitting at the same time looking at the syllabus thinking I'm dropping this course as soon as I could get to a computer term you know I really liked writing essays so yeah that would be right a shitty course you know but look but look some people who's being cynical here am I being cynical I'm being sincere because I'm sincerely dressed and learning I'm sincerely written education but I'm also interested in the process and how I'm going to be evaluated whether whether or not I can win so one of those that was it's not like that I took a course in I guess you'd say philosophy of education or methods of Education right again if you know me or you watch my training thing if you read the description scores think wow this is the kind of course aisel want to take that this guy would want to take and the first day of class I've never this happened in a real university class so I sit down it's a normal University lecture hall with the desks in a row and the professor comes in and says okay push all the desks to the side and sit on the floor in circles sit your ass on the floor there's no carpet there's no right it's not that kind of room you'd sit your pass through 30 Florida circle and already I'm thinking hmm maybe this time they had it should they had a sit like little you know pre preschoolers or whatever sit in little circles of five people and you know there were a whole bunch of red flags for me the type of assignment that we're supposed to come in these participatory assignments and so on and this is you know I can understand why they think that's cool but also the the first question she gave us were supposed to discuss it in a group and then give her answer was to evaluate a certain method of Education a certain style of participation and how effective is it at x y&z now it was very obvious the teacher just won here ten out of ten this method of education is great for this great for that and great for prepping for exams it was three different categories and terrorism arisen and I gave my honest answer I said no I think it's about a five out of ten for prepping for the naps I don't think this is an excellent way to prepare for exams and the teacher was was fuming she was livid she was angry at me and I think every other student of class was just like yes teacher ten out of ten this is the best method for preparing for exam nobody else was questioned yet but it's like you know okay I can't I can't have an opinion that much in this class I'm expected in terms of the mode of participation evaluation everything else said Nate I mean these are very very different that's why I mention them from the case I think the one you already know about was the class on on the politics of immigration where the teacher was up basically on that issue was a left-wing extremist she believed all illegal immigrants should be welcomed into the country unlimited illegal immigration should be legal in effect you know she took a position I pointed out to her in class I said you know if you do a poll you realize 99% of Canadians disagree with you look we have polling data on these questions there's political science right but we're you know her political position was biased against I mean I should have dropped that course I didn't I didn't drop that course and I'll always read it I should it was a ton of work there's a ton of work for a hostile problem I guess like that's content-based no I like the fact that you've taken classes that are in political science and it's I can imagine it's tough to be somebody with an opposing view yes when the professor is teaching something explicitly political I did not take any political science classes and very few courses that even the content would be controversial to talk about like you're not gonna have a lot of controversy in the class even if you disagree with the professor about the meaning of a passage from Virginia Woolf you know one of her books like yeah like really that's not gonna ever like cause like I don't know like I can imagine that one professor just wouldn't like a certain member of the class but like yep you know I just don't I have not had that experience so like I would have never dropped a class just because of the political stances of a professor or because of you know them not liking me no I was also you know not as I'm sure you're you're very you're not a spoken-- person so like in class I'm sure you write well these classes okay but look so that's another point I was saying from day one take up the books if you're talking about a class that is you know most seminar class class there's a role for the student speaking some are somewhere just a straight theater you also want to start speaking in class right at the beginning why so that you can make the decision about whether or not you're gonna drop the class and also so you know what you need to know to get started on the research right away I'm saying research as opposed to writing the essay I I think it doesn't matter if you leave the writing until the last minute like in a sense so what would you idealize more there were courses where I wrote it three months before the deadline where I got the books I did the writing and the essay was done three months was I've done that but you can also get the books do the research and then do the writing at the last minute and you'll be relaxed it won't even be a rush if you look oh yeah I've done all the reading I've done all the research of the assignment over the last three months so I'm a hundred percent prepared now I can just relax and write it up know I'm writing up something I already know that I'm already convergent in you probably look great right but I've done both I mean I've done all these but the point is getting the books during the research meeting but if you think about speaking in class that's also something what did you write at the beginning in a sense that's your opportunity to test the professor instead of vice versa not the professor of testing you what is this what is this course about yeah so look I don't think anyone would say that succeeding in university is easy it's not mostly because nobody explains to you the rules of the game that you're playing you're expected to come in and figure them out for yourself however not failing you know not doing badly that's really a separate you know limiting your risk making strategic decisions about what you study and how you study it what kind of research you're gonna do what course you're gonna say what you're not gonna take what compromises you're gonna make right what if you find a course that on the surface is not interesting you at all but it's good for your degree and you can get a good grade in it there's a sec separate art of making that interesting for yourself because most of these courses you get to do the essay on whatever you want so you may think oh this is a boring class in terms of what's in the syllabus or what are the assigned readings but then within that topic you can come up with you know a research question that's interesting to you that motivates you that makes it more educational rewarding for you so that's on you you know that creative aspect I I felt was kind of unstated yes just said sure okay but really just like agreeing with you you know like I could have made that class interesting if I would have focused on the historical and political things that were happening but you time of junior Wolfe was writing but I knew nothing about it in the class didn't talk about it at all so let's let's say let's say writes totally not interesting let's say I was forced to take a literature class like this that I didn't want to take it didn't didn't happen over this might work but if I had to do an English literature class I'm really not that interesting literature but I could be in a class like that and I go up the professor and say hey this class about Virginia Woolf when I'm really interested in is Asian politics so here's here's my proposal how do you how do a pan respond to Virginia well I'm gonna look at the criticism of you know you know appreciative reception reception of Virginia Woolf in Japan if it was Shakespeare and it's like look I don't really want to sink my time and energy into Shakespeare what about the history of Shakespeare being adapted and performed in communist China you know how was Hamlet performed in Beijing in terms of translation and politics and culture now I've got something probably the professor's gonna be delighted to it's really oh wow that's that's different from the other 999 essays I have one on hand for the Shakespeare they'll probably accept the the proposal and I've created something that positively motivates me and has educational value for me in terms of in terms of my interest but nobody teaches you this sorry in general unless your parent is me your parents don't teach you this high school doesn't prepare you for this how to make reading productive how to make independent research rewarding and even as obvious as it is how to block out your time now to get this stuff done yeah so look just in this video by saying cuz some people don't notice about me in some ways my life has been unbelievably horrible and tragic that be a topic for another video but one of the ways which my life has been wonderful is that for me learning never ended my first University was back when I was a normal teenage age back in 1997 and then I've again whether it's a tragedy or a triumph I've come back to university again and again I didn't run but I completed that degree but I've repeatedly enrolled in and started new degrees after that so I've gotten to rehearse this experience again and again and yeah the last time around I mean this time I did get extremely high grades except when I was cornered into classes where I just couldn't win I think that is a topic for another video ok guys lots of ways to get in touch with me I'm on Twitter I'm on patreon I have an email you can figure it out if you want to talk to me more about education university hit me up [Music] a bonus yen