How To Be An Excellent Student

How To Be An Excellent Student

This article continues the series on how to be an excellent student and life learner. Read the previous article here: Before Learning: The Role of Awe in Life and Learning and After Learning: The Role of Reflection in Gaining Wisdom.

 

In After Learning, I shared what I wish I had done as a student to grasp the subject of my courses better. Here, I’m sharing tips specifically on how to be an excellent student who is not just smarter, but wiser, knowing how to contextualize and apply the knowledge to real life situations.

 

These are not meant to replace the usual taking notes, completing assignments, and regular studying that are given activities of a student’s life. They are, instead, ways to get the most out of those other activities, be it lectures, assignments, office hours, etc. The goal is primarily to increase and deepen understanding of the subject, which secondarily, I would think, would reflect in the grades. These are also written in the context of a high school, college, or graduate course, but the principles are applicable to other learning contexts.

 

Before the Course

 

Study the syllabus. Your instructor has put together a plan on how she would guide you through a particular subject for the whole semester. This is done with no small effort. The syllabus is the highest level of perspective on everything you will learn. It tells you a lot about how the instructor thinks and what she deems as important. I used to not pay attention to this, to my own detriment, like the table of contents of a book. But in fact, this is a roadmap that, if followed, will guide your way throughout the semester. Study it; pose questions on why it is arranged this way. You can even ask the instructor the why and how she arranges her course during office hours. Let me tell you a secret: most instructors would be thrilled to be asked these questions by a genuine and true inquirer.

 

Studying the syllabus also helps you to know, before coming to lectures, what will be covered on a given day. This way, you won’t be a passive recipient of information, but an engaged, active listener. And an active listener will always absorb and retain more information.

 

Skim the textbook/reading materials. Spend a few minutes to an hour to skim the textbook and reading materials. The purpose of this is to get an initial impression on what you will learn. Read the first and last few paragraphs of each chapter to get a sense of its key ideas, flow, and arrangement of thoughts. When the course eventually gets to each section, your brain will have some memory and familiarity to the subject, and will absorb information better. Psychologically, you’ll be more at ease in facing a more familiar topic than a completely foreign one. If you’re majoring in something that requires loads of reading, skimming will help you retain more insights on the reading materials.

 

During the Course

 

Reflect each day. Ask yourself, what did I learn today? What happened in class? Sometimes we get too busy taking notes, running from one class to another, that we don’t get to absorb what is being taught. Take a few minutes to review the day. Remember, repetition deepens impression.

 

Each week, ask yourself, how does this week’s lessons connect with last week’s? Where are we now in the roadmap? How does it differ or enhance the previous topics? Refer back to the syllabus to see where you are in the context of the whole semester.

 

Converse with classmates, teaching assistants, and instructors about the subject. Ask questions that come up during your personal reflection time, listen to what they think, and synthesize your own conclusions. I may not remember what a lecture covers, but I can usually remember good conversations.

 

Go to office hours. Most instructors and TAs are just waiting for you to come and talk to them. They usually don’t see many students until an assignment is due or before exams. The truth is, they would love to have conversations with students from the beginning of the class. These are people who dedicate their lives to academia. Nothing gives them more joy and fulfillment than seeing students who love to learn. So talk to them. They’re humans, trust me. Ask them about their career, why they chose to be in academia. You may be in for surprises.

 

If you want to take it to the next level, create your own thought process map or chart in organizing the course materials. If you were to teach the course, how would you do it?

 

After the Course

 

Once the semester ends and final exams are over, don’t just discard the materials you’ve learned and dump all memory to oblivion. Spend some time contextualizing the course in the bigger framework of your life education.

 

What are the key principles you learned from the course?

 

Connect the subject with other courses or fields of study. How do they relate to each other? How do they make you a better doctor/engineer/social worker or whatever career you are pursuing? This exercise helps you understand what relevance does this subject have in the world. Write down your thoughts to summarize the course and the whole semester.

 

 

These things don’t have to take a lot of your time; a few minutes here and there will do. And you don’t even have to do all of them. You can start implementing one thing into your daily habits, and add on later. In fact, I would argue any one item would naturally lead to the others, since this is about approaching school as a wisdom seeker. When this self-evaluation becomes a habit, it will change the way you live and learn hereafter.

 

Further reading: 

If you want to learn more on how to be an efficient learner, read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. It has a brilliant section on how to skim a book!

 

Photo credit: Freekpik

After Learning: The Role of Reflection in Gaining Wisdom

After Learning: The Role of Reflection in Gaining Wisdom

This essay continues the thoughts in a previous essay, Before Learning: The Role of Awe in Life and Learning.

 

If wonder is the beginning of wisdom, perhaps reflection is the other bookend, the process by which we form thoughts, shape opinions, and reach conclusions on the things we learn.

 

If I Could Do School Over

 

If I were to re-do my schooling—I wouldn’t—I would take more time to reflect. Here’s why. Throughout the years of formal education, I tended to do better in final exams than in midterms, because I learned the most when studying for finals. The distinct difference here was the scope of the materials. During finals, I studied the entire curriculum for a given subject, which gave me a narrative of the past semester.

 

Having this big-picture view, I finally understood the context of each individual lesson, why we went through certain subjects, and how they connected to other topics in the class. I knew this then and I know it now: I was always a big-picture learner. I could grasp knowledge better if I knew its context, as if fitting it to a larger puzzle in my mind.

 

In my field, most classes involved solving problems with a multitude of equations. During the semester, it was easy to get lost in what the lecture covered at a particular moment, since the equations looked similar from week to week. How did week 5’s problem differ from week 4? Since the lectures went over nuances of similar problems, it could be hard to discern the differences in real time.

 

It also didn’t help that during lectures, I was too busy copying notes from the board, limiting my attention to the essence of the lecture.

 

But all of these fragmented pieces would come together beautifully during finals (and often not before this). I now understood how to apply the equations in the appropriate time and situation. I could understand the problem formulation, the principles that applied to it, and the method to solve it. This integration, to me, was the pinnacle of learning. I finally grasped what I studied.

 

Yet, truthfully, I did not have to wait until finals for this knowledge-alignment to happen. It could have taken place throughout the semester; I just did not have the wisdom to try seeing the big picture. If I could do school over, I would reflect more to understand the context of what I learned each day.

 

The Growth of the Mind

 

In Before Learning, I mentioned Mortimer Adler’s—author of How to Read a Book—definition of learning as the process by which the gap or inequality between the mind of the teacher and the student is closed. Once this gap is closed, though, equality is reached, and a learner can then evaluate and judge the situation for herself. She may agree or disagree with the teacher, fully or partially. The bottom line is, this post-learning experience is a crucial part in independent thinking–to think for oneself and not be a mere reflector of other people’s thoughts.

 

In reflection, we organize knowledge into a mental framework or worldview. Perhaps before, we only knew one side of an argument, but after learning, we see another side and gain perspective on our original position. Perhaps we gain wider horizons on how the world works. A life of continual learning means a continual shifting of this mental structure, not always drastically, but a shift nonetheless. This is the growth of the mind.

 

The pace of schooling these days could well prevent a student from integrating all these bits of knowledge into a coherent set of insights, if she didn’t take time to reflect. Thus, I’m advocating a carving out of time to do this slow thinking in one’s life schedule.

 

Contextualization and Connection

 

Personally, reflection is about two things: contextualization and connection.

 

Contextualization is about understanding the bigger picture, the context in which a particular subject resides. It’s about answering these questions: Why is this subject important? What problem does it address? What problems does it not address? Are there limitations to its proposed solutions?

 

Usually, this bigger context is a real life issue. In scientific journal papers, the biggest context is usually the introductory paragraph, big statements like curing cancer, solving the energy problem, etc. The subject matter that we study, though, is usually a subset of a subset of the solutions, meaning that there is a cascade of contexts between the biggest picture and our subject matter. Developing this mental framework takes time, but will distinguish those who excel in understanding from regular learners.

 

Connection is about linking the subject matter to other adjacent topics within the same context. How does this material connect with what I already know? Does it complement, expand, or contradict my previous understanding? How about its relationship with other approaches or propositions? What other disciplines are relevant to this subject?

 

This approach applies some divergent thinking. It would also help prevent thinking about something in a single narrative.

 

Maybe there is one more dimension to reflection worth adding here. It’s personalization—how does this learning change me as a person? Am I different? What would I do differently given this new understanding?

 

Reflect to Gain Wisdom

 

There are ways to develop a habit of reflection in life. I’d like to suggest here a few tips on how to do this practically.

 

For students, reflect often on what you learned in class that day. Do it often, daily or weekly (monthly or quarterly is too long, in my opinion). Pushing it further, write down your thoughts—a line or two—each time. This will help you retain information.

 

When the quarter or semester is over, ask yourself, what new understanding did you gain compared to the previous semester? How did the class connect to other subjects? Concurrently, this reflection would also help you find interests and explore a potential career in the future.

 

For the general population, take time to ask yourself, have I learned anything recently? Am I growing? Are my skills developing? Without the structure of formal education, we can get lost in just doing the same things week by week, month by month, and year by year. It’s important to take stock on our growth process in all aspects of life and work.

 

For readers, after reading a book, ask the following questions:

– What did the author propose?

– What problem did he address? What didn’t he address?

– What truths are proposed in the book?

– Do I agree, fully or partially? When does that truth apply, and when does it not apply?

– How am I changed as a result of reading this book?

 

Taking the time to do this instead of rushing to another book will help you remember the content of the book longer. Adler’s books, for example, influenced me in formalizing a structure of post-learning reflection to enhance wisdom. It taught me that there’s work to be done before and after reading a book, and that I am obligated to form an opinion/position.

 

 

Reflection is key in the art of self-learning, serving as guideposts to keep us both motivated and self-aware. If I could share one tenet to live by as a learner, it would be this: Study to be smarter, Reflect to be wiser.

 

Photo credit: FreeImages.com

 

How to Save Money on Audible Membership

How to Save Money on Audible Membership

Tips and tricks on how to save money on Audible membership for new and existing users. Also see this post for more tips on how to get audiobook discounts using the Whispersync feature. [Last updated: Oct 5, 2018]

 

What You’ll Learn in This Article

 

1. What you’ll get from the Audible Gold Membership.

2. Special promotions when you sign up for membership. Use the Free Trial!

3. How to get reduced membership fee after the free trial and you’ve

become a member.

4. Other lower cost membership plans (i.e., AudibleListener Light

and Silver Membership).

5. How to pause membership.

 

 

 

Audible is the Amazon audiobook subscription service. Being a member allows you to purchase and listen to over 180,000+ audiobooks, get discounts, and special sales that Amazon holds.

 

I’ve had an Audible subscription for years now, and I’ve discovered a few tricks on how to save money on Audible membership. Here, I’ll share several tips on how to maximize your savings when you sign up for an Audible membership and how to save when you are already a member.

 

To read all about the different Audible membership levels and their pricing, go to this article:

Audible Subscription Plans & Prices: Which One is Right for You?

 

But first, what does an Amazon Audible subscription offer?

 

What you get from an Amazon Audible membership

 

The subscription cost for an Audible Gold Membership, the most common membership level that Amazon advertises, is $14.95/month. This includes:

 

  1. 1 audiobook credit each month, which you can use to purchase any audiobook, no matter how long or short, expensive or cheap the original price is. In essence, this is equivalent to buying an audiobook for $14.95 each month. Since an Amazon audiobook is generally quite pricey–above $14.95–this means that you’re getting a decent value on audiobooks. If you sign up through Amazon, you get the first month free and 2 audiobook credits, i.e., 2 free audiobooks just for trying Audible. The best perk of this promotion is that you get to keep the 2 free audiobooks forever, even if you cancel your subscription after the free trial. [Update 1/9/18: Currently, this is the best sign up offer available]

Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

(and keep them forever)

 

  1. Discounted audiobooks. As a member, if you purchase audiobooks without the credits, you will get discounts on all titles (usually 30%).

 

  1. Member-only sales. Audible holds quite a number of sales that are accessible only to members. They send emails with daily deals, many for less than $5. They also do special events like get 2 books for 1 credit, 3 books for 2 credits, etc., which I’ve taken advantage of many times.

 

  1. Whispersync for Voice. This is one of the neatest features of Audible, in my opinion. Many books offered by Amazon are Whispersync for Voice-ready enabled, meaning that when you have both the audiobook and Kindle ebook versions of the same title, they will be synced with each other, allowing you to pick up where you left off from the audio or ebook version. Now, why would you want to buy both versions? When you buy either an audiobook or a Kindle ebook that is Whispersync for Voice-ready, Amazon will give you an offer to buy the other version at a heavily discounted price. Sometimes, the total price for this combination, by taking advantage of the special sales or daily deals, will be lower than the original price of either the audio or ebook version. I usually prefer ebooks, since I like to go back to certain sections of the book, get quotes, etc, which would be difficult with the audio version. A few times, I’ve found out that buying the audiobook first, then taking advantage of the Whispersync offer, I get a lower total amount spent and I have both the ebook and audiobook versions in my library. For more on this and tips on how to get audiobook discounts via Whispersync, check out this article:

 

How to Take Advantage of Whispersync and Get Audiobook Discounts

 

  1. Return books at any time. If you don’t like any audiobook that you’ve purchased, you can simply return and exchange it with another book, no questions asked.

 

6. Listen to Audible original series, interviews, news, comedy, etc. with Audio Shows (previously called Channels).

7. NEW in 2018! Two free Audible Originals each month. Audible decided to be more awesome in 2018! Now, with your membership, you get 2 free Audible Originals each month. They’re typically shorter, up to about 4 or 5 hours lengthwise. But they are more than just books. In September, I picked Girls & Boys, which is a play that was on off-Broadway earlier this year by Carey Mulligan. The Audible Original is also narrated by Mulligan, whom I love. The other selection that I picked is the X-Files. For October, I see that there are more selections for theater lovers, comedy lovers, etc. For a theater enthusiast who lives so far away from New York City, I’m loving these productions! If you’re a member already, don’t forget to grab these Audible Originals soon!

 

If you’re a big audiobook consumer, this membership package is not a bad deal overall. But for me, sometimes 1 audiobook/month is too much to keep up. An audiobook can take 10-12 hours of listening, and since I only listen to them during commutes, it can take me a while to finish. Plus, $14.95/month is not insignificant.

 

The good news is there are other offers that you can take advantage of both during sign up and after you’ve become an Audible member.

 

 

How to save money on Amazon Audible membership

 

The tips here are for 2 groups of people:

1. Those who don’t have an Audible membership yet, but would like to sign up.

2.Those who have an Audible membership already.

 

 

How to maximize savings when you sign up for Audible

 

If you have never been an Audible member and would like to try/sign up, there are multiple offers you can take advantage of. It’s essentially equivalent to getting a discount on the Audible membership.

 

Option 1. Sign up via Amazon. Their offer is a one-month free membership, so the $14.95 charge only starts on the second month. Additionally, they also give you 2 credits upon sign up, which means that you get 2 free audiobooks just by trying Audible for a month. (Note: some links only offer 1 free credit. Use the link below to get 2 free credits). Try it for free, cancel anytime (or change membership level), and the 2 books are yours to keep forever!

Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

 

Option 2. Sign up via shopping portals. The better deal is to sign up via shopping portals or discount websites such as Groupon or Swagbucks. [Update 1/9/18: While these portals worked in the past, it seems that these promotions are no longer offered at this point.]

 

2a. Swagbucks is a shopping portal where you can get points for doing online shopping. These points can then be converted into merchant gift cards. (Read an overview of Swagbucks from this awesome blog.) Swagbucks currently has an Audible offer for $2 for 2 months, after which the regular membership price will be charged to you. This means that your total spending for 2 months = $2, instead of $14.95 via Amazon. 

 

2b. Groupon currently has an offer for $1.95/mo for 3 months. [1/4/2017 Update] Current offer is 2 months free. Click here to view it or search for Groupon Audible coupons in your search engine.

 

Note: These offers may change over time. Be sure to browse around first before signing up for Audible.

 

 

How to save when you already signed up for Audible

 

Once you are a member, you can’t take advantage of the sign up offers anymore. But it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with a $14.95/mo. Of course, you can always cancel the membership, but these tips are for those who would like to keep subscribing to Audible and enjoy all those membership benefits mentioned above.

 

The good news is that there are options to reduce your subscription costs. Note that Amazon may offer different things to different members, so you may not see the options below in the same order. But if you see other offers than listed here, please let me know in the comments section and I’ll add them to the list.

 

Option 1. Pause membership. Maybe you need time to catch up on the audiobooks in your library, or you want to suspend the charges to your credit card. Audible allows you to hold your membership for up to 90 days. During this time, you’ll still have your existing unused credits, but you won’t get any new ones. You’ll still have access to the other benefits (e.g., discounts, etc.), though. They will resume charging your credit card after the 90 days period. The caveat is that this option is only available to you once, so once you’ve used it, it’s not available anymore (i.e., you can’t suspend your membership forever).

[reader’s comment: someone found that this option is available once every 12 months. So maybe it’s not just once forever after all. Ask the customer rep!]

 

Option 2. Reduced rate offer. When you are a member, you can also get an additional offer of $7.95/mo for 3 months. To get this, do the following steps. Go to My Account, click Cancel my Membership. When they ask the reason for cancellation, choose “The membership fee was too expensive for me”. Once you click Continue, Audible will bring you to an offer page that lets you continue your membership for a reduced rate of $7.95/mo for 3 months. Once you accept, this deal will show up in the Membership Plan Description section of My Account.

 

Option 3. AudibleListener Light Membership – Annual. If you’ve noticed above, the only advertised membership level is the Gold Membership at $14.95/mo. But it turns out that Amazon has other Audible plans that you won’t find unless you ask a customer service representative or Audible offers them to you.

 

After exhausting options 1 and 2, I still felt that the membership fee and 1 audiobook per month was too much to keep up. So I took the steps to cancel the membership again, as described in Option 2. This time though, Audible gave me an AudibleListener Light Membership offer at $9.95/year. This is much cheaper than the Gold membership, but it doesn’t include the 1 credit/mo. However, I still have access to the email deals, which for me, are worth more than $9.95/year. Some of these email deals have huge discounts. Note, however, that you also won’t have the 30% discount that you would normally have with the Gold membership.

 

Option 4. Audible Silver Membership. After using the Listener Light Membership for about a year, I decided to upgrade my membership level again, since there just have been so many great audiobooks published. But I still thought the Gold Membership was too much to keep up with. Hence, the Audible Silver Membership is the perfect choice for me right now. Again, as in Option 3, this membership level is not advertised by Audible, so you’ll have to ask a customer representative to set it up. For me it took a few pain-free minutes.

 

What does the Audible Silver Membership entail:

  • Silver membership costs $14.00 (plus tax) every other month. So instead of 1 credit per month, you’ll get 1 credit every two months. 
  • You are eligible for the 30% discount of any audiobook you buy.
  • You get all the perks of being a member as in the Gold Membership (e.g., sales, 2-books-for-1-credit promotions, free audiobooks that Audible gives away).

 

Note: I’d recommend exercising any of these options at the end of your membership month (i.e., just before they charge you for the following month), to prevent you from losing value for the month that you already paid for. In my experience, whenever you accept a new offer, they charged my credit card and restarted the new membership plan right away.

 

 

If you still want to cancel your Audible membership

 

Make sure to redeem all of your unused credits before canceling, since they will disappear once you cancel. The rest of your library will always be available to you.

 

 

Conclusions

 

In short, these are the tips on how to save money on Audible Membership

1. Take advantage of sign up offers

– Sign up via Amazon (first month free + 2 free audiobooks)

– Sign up via shopping portals such as Groupon, Swagbucks, etc. for reduced rates (recommended)

2. Reduce your monthly membership fee

– Pause membership for up to 90 days (only available once)

– Get the $7.95/mo for 3 months offer by going through the steps to cancel membership

– Get AudibleListener Light Membership – Annual at $9.95/year by going through the steps to cancel membership.

– Get Audible Silver Membership at $14.00 every other month and still get all the perks of being a member.

 

 

If you’ve found out more options than listed here, please let me know in the comments section and I’ll include them in this post. I’ll also update this post when I find more tricks on how to save with Audible in the future.

 

Want ideas on which audiobooks to start listening to? Check out my favorite books from 2015, 2016, and 2017.

 

Try Audible for free today! 

Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Other tips on audiobooks and Audible:

 

Audible Subscription Plans & Prices: Which One is Right for You?

How to Take Advantage of Whispersync and Get Audiobook Discounts

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